


Friendship is Unnecessary

by CynaraM



Series: Friendship is Unnecessary [8]
Category: Johannes Cabal - Jonathan L. Howard
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst, Drama, Gen, Occult
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-03-26
Updated: 2016-09-28
Packaged: 2018-05-29 07:50:48
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 17
Words: 53,692
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6365482
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/CynaraM/pseuds/CynaraM
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The thrilling conclusion of the Friendship is Unnecessary series is brought to you by: angst, best friends, mad nemeses, bird interrogation, and a Jane Eyre reference no-one is going to get but me.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. In which Cabal is frustrated and frustrating

**Author's Note:**

> Updates will be inexorable but a little irregular. I am working very, very hard on this one, but I desperately want it to not suck. Quality will come before timeliness, but I need the kick in the pants that posting brings, so here it is.

  
chill  
adj., withdrawn

__  
_15th September_

__

_Dear Miss Barrow;_  
_Queen to K4._  
_regards,  
_J.C._ _

_***_

_20th September_

_Miss Barrow;_  
_Queen to bloody K4.  
_Cabal__

_***_

_21st September_

_Miss Barrow;_  
_I don’t know what you’re so upset about.  
_Cabal_ _

_***_

_17th October_

_Miss Barrow;_  
_This is childish. How long are you going to keep this up?  
_Cabal_ _

He sealed the envelope and wrote the address. The stairs creaked under his tread as he walked down to the ground floor. His cardigan was buttoned against the predawn cold.

“More mail?” Horst was reading in the parlour. It still gave Cabal a start to find him there, lounging on the sofa and leafing through a magazine as if he was back from university. Still looking, in fact, almost exactly as he used to when he would come home to the family at Christmas.

“More mail than what?”

Horst ignored him. “I was thinking of heading in to town this evening. Shall I drop it at the post office?"

“No, thank you. I will cycle over in a few hours.” The letter would catch the morning train.

There was no mail service to the house. A new postmaster had once disregarded the warnings of the other villagers and ignored Cabal's post restante arrangement. He had cycled forth to bring the blessings of his Majesty's postal service to the lonely house, but his enthusiasm was annihilated by the half-defleshed dog skeleton outside Cabal’s gate. The fairies did like their little joke. The jar of honey Cabal had subsequently left in the garden was likely unrelated, but he was left in peace.

Johannes went to the cellar steps, and Horst raised his eyes from the magazine to watch him go. He would follow him downstairs soon, to lie in his walnut and satin casket and lapse into a vampire’s dreamless sleep.

He had initially protested the acquisition of the coffin. "It's too melodramatic. Who do you think I am, the Graf Von Cabal, rising from my tomb to nibble on the villagers?" His real objection might have been the permanence it implied. He and Johannes had been edging around each other, testing out cohabitation the way an amputee tries on a prosthetic leg. But the coffin was well-cushioned, and Horst did enjoy being able to stretch out. Johannes had pointed out that it was bound to come in handy sooner or later, even if Horst didn’t want to keep it.

Still writing Leonie, was he? Horst smiled a small sad smile before returning to an article on cravats. Something with a blue stripe would bring out his brother’s eyes, he mused. What if all the black cravats had tragic accidents? Bleached themselves. Were accidentally given to the poor. Bravely lit the fire in the parlour?

Below, Cabal tended his experiments in the secret cellar. The ventilation fans hissed at the edge of hearing, and the electric light was cool and steady. He had completed his day’s work. His necromantic experiments were underway, and now he reviewed what he knew of vampirism, its cause and reputed cures.

Hours later, he pulled himself up the stairs to the kitchen, head spinning. If he went more than a day without eating, Horst would become anxious and start making him sandwiches, so he ate something before he bathed, dressed, and took his bicycle out of the shed. The leaves were a slippery mat under the tires. The bark of the trees was black with a spatter of rain. Days passed.

***

Horst, of course, did not eat sandwiches. He travelled afield every few days to a different local pub. He had not fed from Johannes, and he didn't intend to. The area was sparsely populated, but he had managed so far.

He awoke one evening in the satin-lined closeness of the coffin. He could feel the sun below the horizon and the dull ache of the final rays in the sky. This quiet moment between sleep and waking was a good time to think. Lying there reminded him he was a vampire, of course, but that knowledge was never very far away.

His brother was hardly sleeping. He had to be bullied into eating. He didn’t have a kind word for anyone… and so far, so normal. But there was something wrong, something almost wistful about those brutal workdays and his cursory self-maintenance. Johannes had always worked to forget things he didn’t want to think about. And then there were the letters. Horst hadn’t seen a single reply from Penlow in the mail. And a curious vampire with an elder brother’s habit of prying didn’t miss much.

He would like to think Johannes’ discomposure was a positive sign. The medievals, Horst had read somewhere, had liked to see a bit of infection in a wound; they thought it meant things were healing up nicely. They called it laudable pus. Perhaps it was good that Johannes had accidentally harboured an emotion strong enough to frighten him? Horst chose to see it as a helpful sign, anyway. He had been encouraged by Leonie’s defence of Johannes, despite the subsequent events. Anything to help him put up with his brother’s moods.

He took a deep breath. It relaxed him, even if he didn’t need the air. He raised the lid, meaning to take the dressing gown that hung on the cellar wall. He stopped when he saw Johannes sitting at the foot of his coffin. On the cement floor. “Johannes?'

His brother was sitting on the floor. In his suit. Horst grasped for words. “You’ll ruin your trousers."

“Yes. I was just,’ and Johannes stifled a yawn unconvincingly, “just thinking."

“Really. Well,’ and with an effort Horst summoned up his best devilish big-brother smile, “if taking the stairs is too difficult for you, allow me to help.”

Johannes did not exactly comply with being slung over Horst's back and carried up to the kitchen, but at least the struggles and cutting insults put some colour into his face.

***

_7th November_

__~~Miss Barrow~~  
Leonie;  
How 

***

Things came to a head the next night. Horst had, unwisely, enquired about the heavy sack sprawled in the front hall. Unpleasant shapes poked against the canvas. Johannes had chosen to hear a note of _froideur_ in the question, and in the ensuing three minutes he had turned this into a fierce, if one-sided, argument.

Johannes stood in the middle of the parlour, mud on his trousers and anger on his face. "My work will culminate in the most important discovery in history, and I am met with obstruction and narrow-minded judgement. That isn’t insanity, that is fact.”

Horst sat on the chaise. He had said nothing about insanity. "All right, Johannes.” He could tell this wasn’t going anywhere. It only infuriated his brother more.

"Don't you dare humour me. My god, you would patronize me!' He voice was incredulous, and he slashed the air in an uncharacteristically showy gesture. "Neither of you ever tried to understand, to look beyond your meagre frame of reference."

That was too rich. Horst looked up from his crossword. “Really?’ Horst's drawl sounded relaxed until one realised one had lost four layers of skin. It was one of the few attributes that suggested Johannes was a blood relation and had not, in fact, been left by exhausted and infuriated fairies. “You are saying that you haven’t been sufficiently indulged by those close to you? Is that your argument, Johannes? And who else do you mean, exactly, when you say ‘neither’?"

“I don’t need your indulgence. I would, however, welcome a brief respite from the prissy expressions and finger-wagging."

Maybe it was time for some home truths. Horst turned his eyes back to his magazine and flipped to the next page, deliberately infuriating. He added, in a conversational tone, “it cost Leonie, being your friend. It costs to be close to you. We were talking about Leonie Barrow, weren’t we?"

Cabal's anger abated with confusion, so he didn’t try to deny it. "Costs…?” He looked as if someone was trying to explain the general theory of relativity using a latchhook, a quiche, and the vocabulary of a Gilbert and Sullivan operetta. Horst knew that expression of old; it was how Johannes always looked when confronted with the needs of others. He had to try.

“Don't you think her conscience suffered? After all, I have the excuse of being your family." He did not say ‘blood.' "Leonie, poor sap, simply liked you.'

Johannes swallowed.

Horst pressed on. "It costs peace of mind. Safety. It costs self-respect, sometimes. How do you think I feel when I smell that?” And he threw his arm out at the sack. “When I think about the massacre? I bet Leonie lost sleep from the day she realised she’d somehow come to like you. Questioned herself. Wondered what the hell she was doing. Made excuses for you, ones she knew you didn't deserve. And a fat lot you cared."

Cabal suddenly found himself fighting for his footing in this argument. "And what do you think it cost me?” He liked to fight with a cool head, but something ungovernable was starting within him, uncoiling like a hot snake in his gut.

“I honestly don’t know, Johannes. Enlighten me."

Horst's bored challenge pushed him into honesty, and he spoke without thinking. The words expelled themselves like bullets. “It cost me time, Horst. Days, weeks. It cost me guilt." He suddenly felt as if he had vomited, hot and ashamed and a little relieved.

Horst softened a little, but he wasn’t ready to acquit Johannes yet. “Maybe guilt is better than not feeling anything. The irony is that I’m the vampire, and you...." He checked the time. He could still get across the fields to the pub before closing time. He sympathised, but he would sympathise better from ten miles away.

“You don’t understand. Do you know how long it’s been? How many years?” Johnnes’ voice shook on the last word. Horst knew what he meant.

“One... plus eight in a hole... plus the year of the carnival… plus about three and a half, I suppose. Thirteen years and a few months.’ His voice had changed from frustrated to sad. “But look at yourself. You can’t keep going like this, Johannes. It’s not too late for you to…’ he didn’t dare say ‘move on,’ “...have a life."

That had been the wrong thing to say. Johannes had been looking for an excuse to slip back into his vast, comforting rage at everything. "By all means, Horst, continue to lead by example. What are you doing with eternity these days?' He snapped his fingers as if he'd just remembered. "Right, sipping barmaids and lecturing me on mediocrity.’ All trace of uncertainty had vanished from his voice and posture. “You have the wrong idea. The time I spent saving Leonie Barrow from herself was a distraction from my work. I am grateful she has absolved me of any responsibilities towards her.” He said it coolly. Maybe he had convinced himself it was true.

Horst felt ill, but he stood and refolded the newspaper with a crisp snap. “Fine. Just don't kill her to prove your detachment if she turns up again.” If he had stayed, he would have seen Cabal’s face change, but he was gone.

****

Horst left in a huff, off to deplete the veins of the idle and tipsy. Cabal thought he would try to sleep. If his soul would shut up for five consecutive minutes. “ _If she turns up again._ ” He had caught himself rehearsing lines of argument he should have used at the Dee Society, wondering what he should have said then, what he could say if he saw her again.

Setting a few skeletons on the grotty little bigots had seemed a small price to pay for Twiccian’s file, and it had been intended to buy him and Leonie some time. In retrospect, he should have refined the plan. He should have left the wards up and foiled the horde of undead, thereby back-stabbing Twiccian - after making provisions for a safe retreat. Should have, could have, would have, he reflected wryly. Damn. He was thinking about it again.

After all, he had met her at a carnival, on an aeroship, and in an insane asylum; surely she couldn’t avoid him forever. Could she? He lay awake for hours, but his exhaustion pulled him under at last. When he awoke, muscles stiff and eyes grainy, it was day.

He drifted around the house, unable to settle into any useful activity. He tidied. He hadn’t needed to tidy when he lived alone, but Horst left a litter of magazines, newspapers, ashtrays, and books. Cabal secretly found it soothing to put the house to rights after his brother's small disruptions.

He found a few letters scattered on the floor. Horst must have picked up the mail before retiring for the day. A large, stiff envelope caught his eye. It had no return address, but the handwriting drew his full attention; he felt a thrill, which he immediately suppressed. Leonie had written?

He should throw it away in total indifference, of course. Or perhaps bury it a few miles away, to be safe. This was not, he thought carefully, a welcome development. She probably had some tiresome request. What if she needed him, for example? Or could it be an apology? He would be gracious if it was an apology, he decided.

He appraised the package. It was far larger than a letter. Even though he didn’t often reciprocate, her chess moves had sometimes been accompanied by actual letters, and none of them had needed an envelope like this. It was unlikely she had sent him a package of anthrax or a mail bomb or some other piquant bit of correspondence. Even if she had addressed it under duress… well, perhaps it was as well to be safe.

He opened it in the attic lab, with all due precautions. He was curious. His tweezers found envelopes and a dog-eared notebook.

He had been obliged to search her room at the university, once. He hadn't found any of his correspondence, although she kept letters from family and friends. It seemed she had kept several of his after all. His recent letters were in a separate bundle. They hadn’t even been opened. And finally, the notebook in which she kept their chess game. He removed his gas mask and acid-retardant gloves.

He turned the notebook in his hands. Its cover was creased and rubbed from being stuffed into coat pockets and purses. The package was a finely mixed piece of courtesy and rebuff; he appreciated it aesthetically, even as it stung. This was everything she possessed that he had touched: everything that might have been used to track him through divination or forensics. They would not be turned in to the Dee Society. On the other hand, the unopened letters were a particularly crisp slap in the face.

She had also sent the notebook, in which she had recorded nothing more than their chess games. He opened it and turned to the last page, wondering if she had left a note, a final thought. There was only a line drawn through the chessboard, scored so deeply there was a mark in the blank pages beneath it.

He tossed it all into the trash and sagged back in his chair.

Who knows how long this maudlin state of affairs would have continued, if fate had not intervened?

...

Cabal was bludgeoning something to death on the landing when the air pressure in the house changed. Windows creaked and rattled, drafts keened. Cabal arose from the red-brown smear on the hardwood. He must come back with a damp rag shortly, he thought. The drafts shrieked louder; this was not a natural wind. He pelted down the stairs. He searched the parlour, the library, the kitchen for the source. He paled and hurled himself down the cellar stairs. Wind rushed past him.

There was a gaping hole in the wall of the cellar. It did not give on to the sandy loam characteristic of the neighbourhood’s topsoil. Instead, Cabal saw a gleam of light and glimpsed another space. He leapt at his brother’s coffin. The box had already started to drift a little, at one end. It was not a difficult distance to jump; the wind dragged him in the direction anyway, and he was able to drape himself over the tasteful walnut of the lid.

Inside, Horst was lying insensible: dead for all practical purposes. A vampire is a fearsome thing at night, but around teatime he is as useless as three byakhee at a bridge table. Cabal embraced the casket with both arms and dug his toes in to the floor on the side of the portal. The sliding stopped.

The suction from the portal did not abate; in fact, it climbed. The wind that whipped by Cabal was November-cold now, strained through the cracks and crannies of the old house. Wind tore at his skin and stole his breath. The force of it made it impossible to breathe, except in gagging little bursts. And Cabal’s foot slipped, and the coffin moved an inch. He was beginning to wish he had eaten more, lately; he was underweight.

His foot slipped again. It was unstoppable now: one or both of them was going through. The only question was whether it would be one or both of them. He had a moment of wretched choice; follow the coffin into the portal, or ensure Horst’s abduction to give himself a chance.

He wrenched himself over the coffin, sending it careening into the portal but gaining a few precious feet. He splayed on the floor like a starfish, maximising his contact with the ground, pressing himself into it. He heard a window burst somewhere in the house. His cheek rasped along the concrete as the portal drew him closer, closer….

And all was still. The shrill of the wind was replaced by ringing silence.

The cellar was almost free of dust. It was also free of a well-padded walnut coffin with satin lining. Cabal knew what had happened and who had done it.

He pushed himself up to his knees. His cheek stung. The wall was back to its unremarkable self, and Horst was gone, sucked through a doorway in reality. Johannes realised he was still kneeling on the cement floor, and he was pressing his fists into his brow.

He was just so _verdammt_ tired. His eyes prickled.

He had to go to war with Arthur Twiccian. Alone. Naturally.

He wondered what Leonie was doing now. Having tea with her "sweet boy," probably. And Cabal never got a moment's surcease from this grim bloody nightmare of death and loss and fading hope. He watched the blood pulse behind his closed eyelids. He felt his throat constrict.

He bit the inside of his cheek, hard. The pain cleared his head and brought him back to himself. “Mawkish,' he said aloud. "And not even true." He had to assume Horst had not been killed out of hand. Sunlight might not be a permanent death, but if there was one, Twiccian would have found it.

So: assume he been taken to lure Cabal into a trap. Within certain parameters, he could cope with that: but if that was Arthur Twiccian's plan, he had overestimated Cabal. He had no clue where to start looking.

“There’s no point,’ he said aloud, “in luring someone into your trap if they can’t _find_ it, Twiccian.” This was ridiculous. And that kind of information took weeks or months to prise out of the underworld. Twiccian would have defences against scrying.... What would he do if Twiccian had covered his tracks too well?

He steadied himself again. He would start with his own notes on the man. He hadn’t learned of another lair, he would remember that, but perhaps he had overlooked something. The notes were in the attic lab. It seemed like a long way up.

He made himself rise lightly to his feet. He dismissed the sensation of fatigue. He would go ahead on adrenaline, on grit, on stubbornness. He had done it before. Horst had been taken. He was Johannes Cabal, and he was not without resources. 

He dusted his knees. Histrionics were hell on trousers.

In the attic laboratory, Cabal started a new notebook.


	2. In which Cabal seeks help

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Cabal would tear Hell itself open to get Horst back from Arthur sodding Twiccian. Upon reflection, he thought he might prefer to tear Hell open. At least he knew where to find Hell.

chill  
adj., _glacial_ ,  
also _solitary_  


An hour later, Cabal sat in his attic laboratory.

Twiccian was his superior in arcane power, earthly resources, and manic vigilance. He was nearly as intelligent as Cabal. Maybe.

Cabal had two advantages, as he assessed them. First, his sanity. Twiccian's crazed devotion to his own safety was admirable - or, at least, its deranged intensity generated the kind of admiration occasioned by a model ocean-liner constructed out of human teeth, or by the world’s longest nipple hair - but it might affect the man's ability to make rational decisions. At least, Cabal hoped it would.

Second, the madman had taken Cabal’s brother. Cabal would tear Hell itself open to get Horst back from Arthur sodding Twiccian. Upon reflection, he thought he might prefer to tear Hell open. At least he knew where to find Hell.

He wished he could pack a few changes of linen in the Gladstone, find some people to hurt, and hurt them until they told him where to find the man. He would have done exactly that, but he suspected he could spend a year hand-maiming Londoners and never find someone who had the information. How could he find the right people?

And even supposing he found the place Twiccian was holding Horst, how could he weight the odds in his favour? The fresh notebook on his desk sat blank.

One possibility had come to mind immediately. He didn’t write it down.

He could appeal to Leonie for assistance. Cabal was good at getting into places and stealing things, but several times Leonie had been… not as good, of course, but of material assistance. Her relentless criticism improved plans, and he wanted her for the same reason the Dee Society did: her intelligence, her competency, her nerve.

What had he been saying a few day before? Something about being relieved she was gone? Yes, well. He had wanted that to be true. He had pretended it was true until her envelope arrived.

Might she help? No matter how angry she was, she might, for Horst's sake, put that aside. Cabal grimaced. And if he went to her, asked - no, begged her for help, she might not refuse his honest, desperate need. Or she might.

No. Pride revolted from being turned away from the Barrow doorstep, of course, but there was another reason. Oh, he had intended to remove Twiccian as a threat, but he had wanted it be his plan, not that bastard’s. Privately, he didn’t like his chances. Horst wasn't Leonie's brother, and if Twiccian had seen fit to leave her out....

Cabal was struck by a new idea. Would Twiccian, in fact, leave her out? He might have decided she was beneath his notice. If so, it was another stupid miscalculation (Artie Twiccian could have walled himself in and raised skeletons until he had his own cricket league, for all Cabal cared, if he had stayed away from the north of England. Live and let live,) but it would be a convenient one, if true.

Well. Twiccian might bring Leonie into this mess, and if he meant to, Cabal couldn’t prevent him: but he wouldn’t drag her into it himself. He would have to make the best of it and call in some favours.

***

He arranged the summoning as soon as night fell. Cabal stood a little distance from his front gate and squinted at the glow fading in the southwest. Horst would be waking now, wherever he was. If he was. Cabal made a mental note that, if all else failed and he was himself still alive, he should check the Druin crypt at the next new moon.

Traffic was rare along his road, but the landscape was exposed and he did not want this to be a public interview, so he waited for full dark. He didn’t bother to inscribe a circle, but he lit a few candles for light. It was a still night, with no breeze to move their flames, but the damp cold struck into his bones. The moon was hazy.

The summoning was unusually casual, as summonings went. He still took precautions. He had never summoned Zarenyia at his home before. He trusted her for the usual sort of thing; she wouldn’t switch sides or employ her own brand of forceful romance upon him. Still, an unsleeping part of his brain said that all things act according to their nature. Cabal disliked having a devil, even Zareniya, this close to his house.

That aside, it would be a relief to associate with someone - well, some _thing_ , technically, but there was no need to be rude - who wasn’t trying to improve him morally. Zarenyia would approve of anything if it amused her. And he and Zarenyia understood each other, didn’t they? And she liked him. “ _…The sap…_ ” echoed Horst.

He bent to work. A few spoken sentences, a ‘there you go, now come on’ gesture, and he had company on the hill.

“Oh, hello, pet.’ She beamed at him, all shadowed sinuous torso and gleaming cephalothorax. “You’re looking disheveled.” There was something indecorous in the way she lingered over the adjective.

Cabal was suddenly conscious of being unshaven, dusty, and ruffled. How embarrassing. Yes, Zarenyia was an occupant of the realms of chaos, but he wasn’t. And, while he had put on his overcoat, he was still wearing his cardigan beneath it. Zarenyia couldn’t see through…? He squelched the train of thought. “My apologies, madame. I have some urgent business, and you may be able to assist me. I can’t absolutely promise henchmen for you to, ah, consume, but it seems likely…."

She cut him off. “I’m sorry, Johannes, love, but I’m terribly busy just now. I have to wash my hair and oil my cilia, and you know how brittle they get if they’re not attended to. Sorry, awfully. Do ask me next time.”

“But, madam….' He was at a loss for words. Zarenyia couldn't be "busy." She didn’t have a schedule. She was always desperate for entertainment. He wasn’t sure she had understood. “I need your help. I need to find someone, and it will be strenuous. It's possible there may not be a 'next time.' ” He hadn’t meant that to sound plaintive. But damn it, if he died, there would be no-one to summon her.

She was shaking her head before he finished his sentence. “Oh, Johannes.’ She sighed. “Loveliest of unadorned cupcakes. Dearest of necromancers. Once you’ve lived a few millennia, you’ll understand that it’s not all about you.’ She looked at him with a fond condescension. "Believe me, I can’t help you. Well, I could,’ she corrected herself. "I just won’t. But be careful, crumpet, and tell that to the lion-girl, too.”

Not to be left behind in a rude-body-language competition, Cabal had crossed his arms and was frowning. “Fine. Well, no-one’s keeping you,’ he said with an ungracious gesture of dismissal. “Off you go."

She didn’t seem put out. “So petty. There are so many things I like about you. Your taste in black cardigans, too. ‘Bye, sweetie.” And she gave an apologetic smile, blew a kiss, and vanished.

Flighty, capricious, unreliable… and strange. There was something odd about that, and he didn't have time to investigate. He plucked his candles from the damp earth with aggrieved gestures and marched, offended, back to the house. He wrapped his coat tighter and shivered.

***

Cabal worked through to dawn. He sat at his desk: sometimes reviewing his notes, sometimes working at lists of people who might be connected, however tangentially, to his target. Twice he resolved to travel to Penlow to see if Leonie was well. Twice he decided against it.

He had three options.

First, complete his translation of the finer points of Twiccian’s cypher, quite possibly celebrating his fortieth birthday in the process. He doubted it would turn up anything of use.

Second, locate and squeeze people who might know Twiccian’s whereabouts. Emphasis on ‘might.’ There were a few people who knew practically everything. They might know this. It was a short and, frankly, daunting list. Cabal would have felt happier attempting it with a forty-stone devil at his side. And like the previous option, it wasn’t guaranteed to work.

Cabal disliked the third option even more.

***

After Cabal had returned from Twiccian’s lair, he had slaved over the cypher for days before breaking it. The pages were singed in spots, wrinkled and trodden underfoot by two pairs of boots and a set of four massive not-quite-catlike paws. Even then it was an impenetrable mass of codewords and private references.

The text mentioned several locations, but only by codename. “Sigma,” “Tune,” “Relay,” and “Antelope” were relatively safe locations, i.e. almost certainly Twiccian’s own. Cabal knew the words would be randomly chosen nouns, not foolish in-jokes that might be unravelled into a clue. Any or all of them could be Twiccian’s laboratories. Any or none of them could be the place he had taken Horst.

Cabal worked until dawn and then through the day, with one pause to make tea and put a shutter over the broken window. He lit a lamp at three-thirty, when the cloud cover and sinking sun made Twiccian’s tiny, messy script hard to read. It would not have been an unusually long day for Cabal if he had been hot on the trail of a discovery; he often worked until the lamp ran dry or the sun rose or set.

This time he was conscious of the rising of the sun and the slow creep of its beams across the attic. He did the picky work of sorting through the notes and the hard and desperate work of forming and discarding strategies. It dragged on him. A tiny, throbbing core of fear kept him alert. Twenty-four, then thirty hours had passed since the abduction, and the sun had set once more. He thought about Horst, who would be waking in Twiccian’s power for a second time.

He put down his pen. He had squeezed as much out of the notes as he could. He would review his findings in the morning and take direct action. He lit a candle and blew out the lamp. He had accomplished little. He should have left for London yesterday.

Fatigue drowned him for a moment as he sat in the half-lit room. He faded into sleep and nodded awake. There was a quiet crackling sound as he opened his eyes. There was a sharp smell that his sleep-sodden brain took a moment to identify, and then he was crushing out the burning hair with his shirtsleeve, ruining the garment. He swore in seven separate accursed tongues, inspected the smouldering ruin of his cuff, and walked down the stairs to the bathroom.

The mirror showed him a scorched, pink patch of scalp the size of a coin surrounded by frizzed half-burnt hair. He scrubbed away the pungent ash and cursed again. He looked like a circus clown. He clutched the edge of the sink until his knuckles turned white. _Sheiße_. This was, somehow, the last straw.

He slunk off to his bedroom. He disrobed and lay down to woo that fickle trollop, Morpheus. He would bathe and shave in the morning. He didn’t look forward to it; in the morning he would have to look at his list of people and make some decisions.

He lay under the covers, awake despite his fatigue, but he was accustomed to being too tired to sleep. He lay in the darkness and listened to the night, waiting it out. His scalp smarted. The fairies were quiet, as if they sensed something wrong with the house or their irascible landlord. The wind had picked up, and it was moaning against the windows, reminiscent of the suction of the portal that had set the house groaning.

Cabal’s firmly inactive imagination did not conjure up voices in the wind. He knew it for one of the sounds of the house. So it was doubly strange to him when a voice did seem to emerge. He had started to drift, but he came to full wakefulness in an instant; perhaps Twiccian’s real attack had arrived? He chilled. He hadn’t considered that there might be a frontal attack coming, and he was unprepared. A weak light played through his windows. A spell-light, a corpse-light, a….

Faint but clear it came to him, with a hill-sent echo. It was a cry, in accents of the utmost feeling: “Cabal, you utter bastard. Open up.”


	3. in which Cabal finds an ally.  Hurrah?

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “Let me in, Cabal. I am not,’ she articulated, “screwing around.”
> 
> An odd contraction tugged at his facial muscles. A… smile? He suppressed it. “The gate yields easily to the opposable thumb.”

chill  
adj., _unwelcoming_

Cabal made himself pause before he opened the window. He peered out. There was someone with an electric torch in front of his gate. The pool of weak yellow light illuminated ankles and sensible boots. He lifted the sash for a better look, and the cold night air whipped into the room and around his bare back. When his eyes adjusted, he saw the silhouette of Leonie Barrow, loose hair tossed in the breeze. Her valise was propped against the garden wall.

It would be easy enough to pretend she wasn’t there; he didn’t consider it for an instant.

He raised the sash and leaned out. "Miss Barrow. You'll have to come back in the morning. I only accept apologies after breakfast."

“Let me in, Cabal. I am not,’ she articulated, “screwing around.”

An odd contraction tugged at his facial muscles. A… smile? He suppressed it. “The gate yields easily to the opposable thumb.”

“And your flying piranhas?”

In point of fact, Cabal had never rescinded his old direction to the garden fae to leave Miss Barrow alone, on pain of various novel penalties. But a reminder never hurt. He gave them the caution he had designed for… well, for Leonie’s first stay at his house. He finished it, “…should any one of you appalling little creatures put a wingtip out of place, retribution will be swift, brutal, and ferrous. Is this understood?” He thought and added, “and don't speak to her.” He shut the window on their chirping grumble of agreement.

He lit a lamp, wound himself in his dressing gown, shoved his feet into slippers, and scampered down the stairs. He assumed an aspect of dignified boredom, then unchained, unbarred, and unlocked the front door.

Valise in hand, she stepped smartly up the walk, never looking into the garden. She brushed past him and into the hall; she continued into the dark parlour.

He followed her with the lamp. Something was obviously terribly wrong. Still wordless, she took Horst's favourite seat on the chaise rather than the fireside chair she had favoured on previous visits. And there she was. Tired. Grim. More grim than he thought she'd be, after four months.

She must have come in on the evening train and walked the three miles in the dark. "Did the villagers bother you?” he asked irrelevantly. A scar twisted angrily along her temple and disappeared into her hair. He remembered the blood dripping from her ear the last time he had seen her. The wound hadn’t healed well; maybe it had gone untended, while the doctors tried to save the dying. He stared at it.

“No, they didn't.” If she had looked at them that way, he didn’t imagine they had. He shivered. The parlour was cold as well as dark.

She looked him up and down, from top to slippered toes. “Don’t tell me you were in bed. It’s only eight-thirty.’ She peered through the shadows. "And what in heaven’s name happened to your hair?"

Cabal was briefly grateful he hadn’t armed himself before he came downstairs. “Still fond of boorish personal comments? I hadn’t expected you to travel all the way to my house to derogate me in person. To what do I owe the honour? Do you, perchance, need something?’ The last words flicked like a whip. “For I see I am finally judged worthy of your attention.”

She ignored his irritation. “Can it, Cabal. One of Arthur Twiccian’s portals snatched dad yesterday.” She didn’t look sad or worried; she looked angry. “You are going to help me get him back. Do you know anything about it?’ She gave him a cool look. "Did your best mate say anything about it, over a pint at the Severed Arms on Saturday?”

Cabal was caught off-guard. “I’m. Your father? Horst was just… as well.’ He collected himself. “No, I knew nothing about it.’ It sank in. "Hang on, did you just accuse me of collaborating with Arthur Twiccian in your father’s abduction? Me? That is revolting. Retract that or leave.”

Leonie shook her head. “Fine. I'm here, aren't I?' Cabal waited. He felt absurdly outraged. Leonie added, "I can’t imagine why I think so little of you.” The words snapped off, one by one, and fell heavily to the floor between them.

“Well." He should have had a reply for that. He had spent enough time composing one.

Leonie sighed and held up a hand. “I didn’t mean to reopen the subject. We’ve wasted enough words on it. I need you to help me rescue dad, and it seems you have your own reasons to go after Twiccian. Truce, until we get them back? Both of them."

Cabal had a feeling of the universe returning to its proper shape. He grunted a grudging assent. "When was your father taken?"

"Yesterday morning, about eleven. He was lying down. He’s had a head cold.” Her lips tightened.

Cabal frowned. "What have you been doing since then? You could have been here a day ago."

“I was busy. Was Horst taken the same way, through one of the,’ she made a gesture, "wind-portals?"

“Yesterday, around three. Since then, I have gone through my notes on Twiccian, trying to discover where he might have taken Horst."

“Well. I’m sorry about Horst. But I fancy his chances more than dad’s. So, where do we start?"

"We start by going to bed," he snapped. One of her eyebrows slid up in mild enquiry. His jaw clenched. "That is, I am going to sleep."

She snorted in derision. "No rest for the wicked, Cabal. How long do you think I've been up? We have to assume Twiccian’s taken them to the same place, probably to his new lair. We should prepare and leave."

He folded his arms in the thick sleeves of the dressing gown. “I agree. Do you know where that is? Because I do not."

“That’s a bit sloppy of you. Aren’t you the one who was terrified of him?"

“Arthur Twiccian is a paranoid genius with substantial arcane resources,’ Cabal stated. "He might live on the moon, and I wouldn’t be surprised. You figure out where he is."

“I will.” And she pulled a thick file out of her bag and slapped it on the table.

Cabal gawped at it for a second. He snatched it up and rifled through the the first few pages. It was true; it was the same file he had so briefly held in the Dee Society’s records room. “How the nine levels of hell did you get that?' Then the implications dawned. Perhaps things were not back to normal. Well, what had he thought would happen? She had been in their lap. Oh, the miserable, predictable, alarm-clock-at-dawn inevitability of it. "Oh. I see.’ An offensive smirk hid the bite of the betrayal. “Is it Second Lieutenant Barrow, now? Are you on leave, or AWOL?' The smirk ripened. "Should I salute?"

“It's none of your business. I have the file. Let’s work."

Fatigue evaporated in the face of new data. They worked in the library, at opposite ends of the table. Cabal lit the fire, they split the documents, and they read, stopping to take notes when anything struck them as relevant.

Leonie took the threat assessment of Twiccian. It was six years old, but it had been updated with an appendix every couple of years. Cabal wondered if they had an assessment on him and what it would look like now. He took the extracts from field reports, which had been carefully copied into the file from the original forms.

They didn’t speak, but neither one was taking many notes. Leonie nodded off over her report once, waking when her chin hit her chest. She stood, straightened her spine with a cracking noise, fixed the fire, and bent back to the pages.

After two hours, Cabal left the room and returned with an open tin of beans and a spoon. Leonie saw him eating, stood, and left the library. Cabal could hear noises from the kitchen. He pretended to read.

She was gone longer than he had been. Just when he was considering following her in order to accuse her of slacking, she returned. Cabal dropped his page. "Where did you find that?"

She raised another eyebrow at his accusatory tone. "I didn't 'find' it. You don't have Welsh rarebit sitting in the pantry. I made it."

Cabal tried not to stare at the cheese that pooled around her toast. He put his tin of beans down. It made a dispiriting clunk. "Don't dab it on the documents."

Half an hour later Leonie pushed herself away from the table with a dissatisfied air. "Why would he bother to do this when he could pop your wards open and squash you like a bug? Or just have me shot, for heaven’s sake? He can’t still be worried about our threat to expose his lair. He’s had ages to move out and destroy the place."

Cabal put down his collection of extracts readily. All evening he had been reading variations on “I haven’t seen him myself, but they say….”

She was right. Their threat against Twiccian had only ever worked because he was irrational about his own safety. The time was long past when he could have taken direct action against them. He lifted an empty hand. “How should I know? Maybe he has some tiresome method of revenge planned. Maybe he likes watching us flail around, trying to find him. Maybe he’s bored.”

But he found he didn’t believe it. Twiccian, for his many faults, was practical. Cabal couldn’t picture him arranging the elaborate abductions of a retired detective inspector and a vampire when a mail bomb and a swarm of his rotting revenants would have sufficed. "Perhaps he wants to negotiate with us.’ Cabal spoke slowly. "Maybe he has something for us to do. He likes to use intermediaries, and he might succeed in turning us to his purpose with hostages."

Leonie's face reflected his thoughts; it was an unpleasant idea, and it felt very likely. It didn’t do them much good, though. They both went back to their reading.

Leonie was still for so long Cabal thought she might have fallen asleep. “How did he contact you to arrange your little alliance?"

Cabal shifted in his seat. He didn’t really want to discuss this. “Well, he didn’t invite me to his lair to discuss it over a cup of cocoa, did he? He’s a criminal mastermind with a persecution complex and the powers of bloody Merlin.’ He sighed. "A bird flew to my bedroom window with a proposal.’ It had been a finch of some kind. It had given Cabal a turn to hear Twiccian’s whinnying tenor spilling from its beak. Leonie opened her mouth. "And no. I didn’t follow the bird, is that what you were about to ask?” His tone dripped sarcasm.

“And since then? No messages? No pally games of chess?"

Cabal was fed up with her jeers. “It’s so time consuming, kicking puppies, tripping cripples, orphaning all those children. I don’t have the time for the hobbies I once did."

Leonie’s brows lowered. “I wouldn’t talk so lightly about children with murdered parents, if I were you. At least, not before you meet the ones you orphaned."

Cabal avoided her eyes. He stood. “I need to sleep. And so do you, by the look of you. You have nearly fallen onto your notes three times.” He put his chair neatly under the table in preparation for leaving the room. But she didn’t let the subject drop.

"You haven't asked about the Dee Society."

He hadn’t. He had hoped it wouldn't come up, though he had known it would. She was inexorable.

"They had two hundred and eighteen people there that day, plus us. One hundred and thirty were killed. Another twenty seven aren't likely to return to duty. The scientists and researchers were practically wiped out. Twiccian must have had a particular interest.’ Cabal didn’t say anything. She had rehearsed this, he thought.

"They have a ward, Cabal, set up for the ones without families. Commandant Singh took me there. Some of them just... scream.” She seemed to be finished. She gathered some papers to take upstairs. Her hands shook.

One of Cabal's hands still gripped the back of the chair before him. “Wasn’t it Twiccian’s fault, too? Or do I get all the blame? What about his other crimes, are those mine as well?"

“I’m sure there’s enough blame to go around, and enough blood to damn any number of necromancers,” she replied, without sounding very worried about it. She hadn’t always been so controlled.

Cabal swore and threw his pen at the opposite wall. “I tell you, I didn’t know what he was going to do!"

That fired her. “You should have known. You could have known, if you’d given a damn. If anyone was real to you besides yourself and her," and Leonie pointed down sharply, to the crystal coffin she knew lay beneath. It was shockingly gauche, dragging Cabal’s most painful secret into this. She pressed on, her face creased with an emotion he couldn’t identify. “I must have been mad to expect sanity from a man in love with a corpse."

Cabal couldn’t speak.

She continued. “Don’t look at me like that. Tell it to those hundred and fifty seven families. Let’s hope the orphans you were sneering at are better at dealing with loss than you are, or you’ll have an interesting middle age.'

She didn’t stop. "If you ever do manage to do it - and I'll give you this, Cabal, you just might - do you think she'd even recognise you?"

Cabal regained himself enough to reply. "You are in my house. There are limits, Leonie.”

“Are you threatening me?"

He replied automatically, “I don’t threaten.” Leonie looked at him as if she hadn’t seen him before. She was measuring Johannes Cabal again. He let her.

When she spoke, it was not in reply to his words but her assessment. “You know, I really think you might.” But she didn’t look afraid.

The slur in that implication stung - but he spoke mildly. “You have been very frank, Miss Barrow. I will return the favour. Turn me in to the authorities or leave me free. But leave me alone.' His voice hardened. "I would rather spend ten years in the depths of the Dee Society than put up with ten more minutes of your trivial analysis. It is as ridiculous as it is painful. Go back and play with your new friends, who will no doubt applaud your insight.'

He smiled thinly before continuing. “You won’t be there long. You don’t want your hands dirty, and they will lose patience. And then you will be back where you were before; drifting through life, thrill-seeking, looking for excitement that doesn’t get too messy.’ He met her eyes, and the smile dropped. "You can think what you like, but when I die I’ll know I tried to accomplish something."

She wasn’t smiling either. Her shoulders had dropped a degree, but she was keeping her head up. “You keep hiding behind that, Johannes. And you’re the one wasting letter paper.’ She regained her poise. "Believe me, I would go to anyone else first. But you’re the man for this job, Cabal, and I’m not letting you out of it. You owe me."

Cabal scoffed. “For what?"

She walked up to him, close. "For Witchfinder Jones.’ And Cabal felt a chill. "I could have sold you out the minute I got in there, but I didn’t. Under duress I kept you - and her - safe. So pay up, help me get my father back, and I’ll go home."

He nodded. "I will see you in the morning, _Fraulein_. I think you know where everything is.” He gestured her formally towards the stairs, and she went without another word. He didn’t follow until he heard her door close.

***

_So_ , they both thought, sitting on their beds. _That went well._


	4. In which Leonie and Cabal join a club

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> He had barely traded a word with her since they left the house. It was infuriating, being so angry at someone and worried for him at the same time. But she couldn’t indulge that. It had to stop. She knew it had to stop.

chill  
adj. _unfriendly, aloof_

The next morning Cabal was up before dawn - but not before Leonie. She was at the kitchen table, where she ate toast and tea by the grim light of the ceiling lamp. His eyes passed over her as if she wasn’t there. He walked past her and put the kettle on. He heard a brisk voice from behind him.

“Cabal, before you say anything - I’m sorry about last night. I let my emotions get away from me: it isn’t helpful to bring up the past. I apologize accordingly.”

He didn’t feel like making up, but he had to be practical. “Indeed. Did you find anything useful last night?"

“Not much. The Society doesn't seem to know where to find Twiccian, either."

"So much for the fabled file.” It was open on the kitchen table. After all the trouble he had taken to get it, after all the disastrous results, it wasn’t even useful. He loathed the sight of the thing.

Leonie poured herself another cup of tea. “But what do you think of this; did you know Twiccian has a fan club?"

"A what?"

"A group of devotees. A club of fanatics, hence the name. Some might call it a cabal, though I wouldn't."

He didn't feel like humouring her. “Twiccian has fanatics?"

“Harmless. Probably. The author of the report I read infiltrated their London group for a short time. He decided they were just some nut jobs who have no real contact with Twiccian. But I think they might know something."

“Why?"

“A hunch."

Cabal didn’t like hunches, but it gave them a place to start. And London was convenient for his list of kneecaps, as well. “Fine. Do you know where to find them?"

“That’s the easy part. They meet at a pub two Tuesdays a month. I know,” she hastened to add, “that’s exactly the kind of thing that made the Dee Society discount them. But I think it’s worth a try. They meet tonight."

***

Cabal’s hat and glasses shaded his eyes. He might be asleep. The train strained and thundered over the hills to London.

His appearance had shocked her last night. When they moved into the light of the library she had stared at him. He was red-eyed! Unshaven! Perhaps this often happened when he was working on his own? She had never arrived unannounced before. He seemed leaner than he had been in the summer. His face was sparer and this waistcoat didn’t fit as smoothly as it had.

He looked better this morning. He was still thin, of course, but his cheeks were smooth and he had lost that air of neglect.

She didn't like being worried about him. If they had still been friends, she would have told him he looked awful, mocked him mercilessly until he, sneering or scowling, deigned to do something about it. It wouldn't have been hard. What had he been doing?

His words from last night still stung. They played in her head whenever he looked at her. _Trivial. Ridiculous. Drifting. Thrill-seeking._ Is that really how he saw her? Drifting along through life? Fastening herself onto him for vicarious excitement and purpose? She didn’t believe those things about herself. But was it, she asked herself gingerly, definitely not true?

He had barely traded a word with her since they left the house. It was infuriating, being so angry at someone and worried for him at the same time. But she couldn’t indulge that. It had to stop. She knew it had to stop.

But what the hell had happened to his hair?

Never mind. She tried to sleep. She let Cabal sleep; heaven knew he looked as if he needed it (she had to stop worrying about him).

She couldn't sleep. She couldn’t stop thinking about her father. He was sturdy and upright, if a bit shorter than she’d thought when she was a girl - but he was greying and slower than he had been. She pictured him at the mercy of Arthur Twiccian. If that wasn’t enough, when she had finally fallen asleep last night, she had dreamed of the massacre at the Dee Society. Ironically, Cabal had finally discovered a way to stop her dreams about her captivity. No, sleep was overrated.

“Cabal."

“Yes.” He answered without signs of waking, without even moving.

“I’ve meant to ask. Did you see through the portal? I wasn’t in the room when dad was taken.”

“I did. I saw a dim room. A stone wall. A figure standing at some kind of lectern. He held his arms up, as if he was performing a ritual."

“You saw Twiccian."

“Probably. I was more occupied with keeping Horst’s coffin from sailing through the portal."

“How did you escape being taken as well?"

Below the blue lenses, his lips formed a sort of smile, and she knew his eyes were on her. “By kicking the coffin through and pushing myself to safety, of course."

They lapsed into silence again.

***

That night, they watched Twiccian’s devotees in the opposite corner of the pub. The establishment, an unremarkable one, was named the Snake and Snake. Cabal speculated idly on the inspiration for the name. Had the owner lacked creativity? Had he named it after the first two animals he saw? Was he a brewmaster herpetologist? The group didn’t identify themselves in any way, but Cabal would have picked them out for occult hangers-on regardless: the overly dramatic overcoats; the weird little beards favoured by a couple of the men; the general tendency in both genders towards amuletic necklaces.

A younger man with sandy hair and a tradesman's shirt made a point of greeting each arrival. He smiled and waved across the room, greeting each with a few words. Between arrivals, he was in an emphatic conversation with a small woman on his left who sketched something on a napkin. A passing barmaid dropped her coinpurse by his chair, and he restored it to her with a grin. He didn’t look like a man in league with Arthur Twiccian. Cabal felt the Dee Society must be right; they were wasting their time.

They had waited until the evening was half gone before they arrived. They would have an easier time extracting information after their targets had been softened by a few pints. "We will wait until they leave, then catch one of them alone in the street. I will ask him for the information, then offer to buy it, and then, if he still refuses...." He trailed off. Leonie wasn’t listening; she wasn’t even at their table. She was across the room, introducing herself to the man. She said something else to them while gesturing at Cabal questioningly, and at a few nods from the rest of the table, beckoned him over. Cabal didn’t show it - or he thought he didn’t - but he wasn’t pleased. He didn’t have a choice, however, so when she pulled a chair over, he did as well. He started to remove his hat, as he had done a dozen times since arriving, but he arrested the motion and replaced it, turning the gesture into a polite lift and nod. Several of the fanatics nodded politely back.

"This is my,' a barely perceptible pause snagged her introduction, "friend, Mr. Schmidtt. Mr. Schmidtt, these are the members of the Friends of Arthur Twiccian."

"Have you considered using the initials?' Leonie's boot tried to dent his shinbone under the table, but he evaded it. The bruises didn’t bother him, but the kicks left dust marks on his trousers. "Good evening, ladies and gentlemen. Thank you for allowing us to join you."

“ ‘Course,” said the sandy-haired man, who introduced himself as Brian.

There were about twelve of them crammed around a round table meant for half that number. They were a mix of men and women, adults and youths, shabby gentility and respectable working-class. Ale was the drink of choice, though one or two women drank sherry. They fell silent to watch the newcomers.

Leonie smiled engagingly. "It was very good of Mr. Schmidt to come with me. I've been so curious about you, but I didn't dare come on my own."

Brian smiled back. “How did you hear about us?"

Leonie arranged to be sipping when the question ended. She drank, swallowed and answered casually. “Oh, a friend of a friend of a friend. He seemed to think it was rather funny, but I couldn’t wait to find out more. Arthur Twiccian is so interesting, but no-one seems to know anything, really. What were you talking about before I interrupted?"

“We were discussing the possibility that Twiccian was behind the recent robbery at the Hermitage in St. Petersburg."

“Yes, what were you saying, Delia?" asked Brian.

“I was saying,’ said the woman, “that in a just world, someone like Arthur Twiccian wouldn’t have to commit robbery to get the materials he needs for his work."

“I find myself in great sympathy with your point of view, madame,’ said Cabal. “In general principle, if not in this particular case."

“I don’t think he could be a necromancer,’ said a man with a rune tattooed on the back of his hand.

“Shut up, Bill,’ said a plump wild-haired woman in the back corner. “That’s practically the only thing we do agree on, so don’t ruin it.” There was general laughter, and the discussion broke into smaller groups.

“I hate to dash your hopes, Bill,’ said the oldest man at the table, a solid grey-haired man in a threadbare suit. “But this is obviously a rehearsal for the first stage of Twiccian’s plan. The larger museums have security hardware comparable to that employed by the secret groups operating within the British military. Diorite-stabilised cement, cold-forged plating, sophisticated alarm systems, it’s all a dry run for his real objective."

A dark-skinned woman on the man’s left smiled. “Oh, major. Are you on about that again?"

“You will have your little joke, my dear. But it should be obvious to the meanest intelligence,’ and here the old soldier cast a grim eye around the table, “that Twiccian is planning a military coup by force of undead arms.’ He punctuated his remarks with his index finger on the table. "And the sooner, the better, say I!” He took another pull from his glass. “Britain for the dead! The sooner the better!” There was a general movement to shush the major, whose cries had carried throughout the pub. Anxious glances didn’t show anyone immediately offering to string him up, however, or even anyone particularly bothered by the noise. It was a busy evening. “Britain for…!"

It was Brian who intervened. “Now, major, perhaps you’d show me that battle plan for taking the Tower of London with a crack skeleton squad again. I think I understand how the vampire plays into it now."

The Major had been offended by the general shushing, but he brightened and pulled a file of greasy papers from a portfolio at his feet. “Yes, m’lad, I was sure you’d get it, given time. Now, this plan does assume that Twiccian is holding Tower Bridge with his undead cavalry, but I think that's a perfectly reasonable assumption."

Cabal was addressed by the small woman who had been talking to Brian before their arrival. “Do you live around here, Mr. Schmidtt? You look familiar."

He hadn’t looked at her closely until now. She was in her middle thirties. She had long curly hair pulled into some sort of bun. Her teeth were uneven in a way that reminded him oddly of Zarenyia.

“I work at the hospital,’ he said, gesturing in a random direction. Leonie had taught him that he should, when cornered, ask people about themselves. It was an unpleasant expedient, but it had been helpful several times. “Do you work in this neighbourhood as well?"

“Oh, yes, around the corner from here, almost. I used to be across the river, but….” Cabal stopped listening. How much more of this was there going to be? Leonie was listening to a knot of three Friends of Arthur Twiccian, nodding and laughing.

“When did you begin to follow Twiccian’s career?’ he demanded, cutting the woman off mid-sentence in a description of her work, whatever it was. She paused and blinked, but didn’t seem to mind. Perhaps Friends of Twiccian were accustomed to unconventional social skills.

“Oh, like most of the people here, around the trial. It was all so very interesting. Don’t you think necromancers are fascinating?"

Cabal, who had been trying to listening in on Leonie’s conversation in case it was more interesting, slowly turned his head back to face the woman, as if it was on a pivot. “Necromancers? Really?"

“Oh, yes. I’d join a club about necromancy if I could, but this is the closest thing I’m likely to find."

The conversation fell fallow for a moment, as Cabal tried to decide if he should be getting further into this conversation or out of it as quickly as he could.

“Svensson, Mboto, Ngyuen, Maleficarus, that bloke who killed him, John Dee…."

“You believe John Dee was a necromancer?” That would put a shoggoth in the Dee Society’s ointment, he thought. It was a cheerful thought, but wholly unsubstatiated by the great sorcerer’s tedious writings.

“Oh, yes. They’ve covered it all up, of course.’ When Cabal failed to reply, she tried again. "I like your accent. Where were you born? You are so familiar-looking. Are you sure you don’t buy at Goosegrass and Cohen?"

“I..." He began weakly.

“Mr. Schmidt.’ Leonie interrupted, and Cabal had never been so grateful for it before. "You must hear this story about the time the Major walked into the courtyard at Buckingham Palace and demanded to see the Captain of the Guards about his zombies.” Cabal was glad for the change of subject, but he only endured the anecdote. The security failure might have been interesting, but the royal family didn't have anything he wanted.

The wild-haired woman with a notebook and two concurrent pints of ale drawled a question. “Where’s Alvin Lee, then? Still on holiday?"

Brian shifted in his chair. "Oh, don’t worry. I think he may have a new job somewhere. He’ll pop up soon with some story, you’ll see."

"He had a new theory he was excited about."

Cabal cleared his throat and turned to Brian. "Have any of you ever seen Twiccian?" He heard Leonie make a small exasperated noise in her throat.

“Oh, no. Not to say in person. Abigail back there has a collection of the woodcuts, but they don’t agree on much, except the beard."

"Abigail?”

“The one with the notebook and the hair. She writes, you know. About Twiccian."

“Disgusting.” Cabal didn’t move his shin quickly enough this time.

“Oh, no, cracking good stuff if you’re open-minded. Not to say it isn’t a bit fanciful, but we like it. She’s in the middle of one right now about Twiccian and his adventures with the yeti-women of Kilimanjaro."

“The yeti of…. So none of you have ever seen him? Does he know you exist?"

“Oh yes. Well, maybe. Keeps an eye out, don't he?” And Brian shifted uncomfortably. “‘Scuse me.” And he left the table.

The evening was winding down; all but a few diehards had gone home, and the remainder were yawning and talking about work the next day.

Leonie beckoned Cabal close.

“Get into a huff and leave me here."

“A huff, madam?"

“See, you’re doing it already. You’re so cooperative."

“Why do you want me to leave?"

“I have to talk to Brian. He knows something. Something about that Alvin person, at least."

“All the more reason for us to outnumber him."

“I don’t want to threaten him, so I want you to stay out of the way."

“Is that the cutting-edge interrogation technique at the Dee Society these days? I can’t say it had filtered down to the rank and file at headquarters. They were rather fond of death threats there."

“Leave the Society out of this. My god, you’re obsessed! Brian might be receptive to a gentler approach. He might open up to me."

“If that happens, I wish him the very best of luck."

“Cabal, really. Can you find a spot where you can shadow us? I’m going to ask him to walk me back to the hotel."

Cabal sighed heavily. "You are impossible," he said, loud enough for the rest to hear. Cabal didn't have to labour to put conviction into his tone. The bit of drama caught the attention of the others, and they watched as Cabal pushed himself away from the table, stood, and walked away. Leonie stage-whispered after him, “Mr. Schmidt... Hansi!” Cabal glanced over his shoulder as he put on his overcoat; there was a wicked gleam in her eyes, quickly suppressed.

Brian had seen the exchange on his way back from the bar. He sat by Leonie. “Bit of trouble with your friend?"

“Yes. He can be difficult. He didn’t really want to come tonight."

“Doesn’t seem very friendly, if you don’t mind my saying."

“I don’t.' But she did, somehow. “He’s just stormed off, and it's time for me to go. Could I… could I ask you to walk me home? It’s close, just by the pharmacy on Dent Street."

Brian didn’t mind at all. They walked out together, searching for their gloves and complaining about the cold. The streets were almost empty. Brian kept up an amusing chatter, which Leonie encouraged for a block or so. Then it was time to work the conversation back towards Arthur Twiccian. “So, what’s your particular area of interest within the club? I never heard you talk about it."

“I don’t have one, I suppose. I just like hearing what everyone else thinks. They’re very clever about it, all sorts of ideas."

“If you don’t mind my saying so, you don’t seem much like the rest of them. Why do you like going to the meetings?"

"Oh well. I like the pub. And Twiccian is dead interesting, and the people are good sorts when you get to know them. The major helped me move flats once, and Delia sent some brandy around when I was sick in September. They don't all have much, you know. This is where they have some mates."

“Do you know where Twiccian might live?"

He didn’t, but he was willing to amuse her with some wild theories: a secret volcano base; an airship that never lands; an undersea village built by merpeople. One member, he said, swore Twiccian had a flat in St. James and could be found down at an exclusive gentleman’s club on rare nights. "Another says he’s the lord of a fairy kingdom. I suppose it’s as likely as the others, but I can’t say I can picture it."

Leonie laughed, but she knew she hadn’t found what had made him so uncomfortable in the pub. The subtle approach wasn’t working. “Brian…"

“Yes, love?"

“What happened to Alvin Lee?"

“Oh, nothing. They're fussing over nothing. He must have a new job.” Brian was a terrible liar. His unease was written in the subtly changed lines of his posture and his stiff tone of voice.

She put a hand on his arm and stopped. “Brian. I need to know. What do you know about Alvin Lee and Arthur Twiccian?” Brian’s face went grave, then startled as Cabal stepped out from the shadows. Leonie cast words over her shoulder. “For pity’s sake, let me handle this. Don't frighten the man." Which, of course, frightened him, as Leonie knew it would. “Brian, Arthur Twiccian is definitely a necromancer. He is also an evil man.’ There was a movement at her back, but she didn’t dare look at Cabal. Her eyes held Brian’s as she tried to build a rapport between them. "He has kidnapped this man’s brother and my father.’ She swallowed. “My dad, Frank. He didn’t do anything to Twiccian, and I need to get him back. Do you know anything about where we might be able to find him?"

Cabal saw the man’s eyes dart to him, where he stood behind Leonie’s back. He held the flick-knife at his side, but he hadn’t put it away. He let the man draw his own conclusions.

Whatever his reasons, he looked back at Leonie. "He watches us somehow. And the ones who are the smartest, the best, know the most, - I think they get hired by him. Alvin, who I was talking about. He said he’d had a message from the man himself. ‘Join me, and be rewarded,’ that kind of thing. Alvin wanted to get ahead in life, and he was going no matter what I said."

“You would have dissuaded him?"

“Well. It’s all well and good sitting in a pub and talking about Twiccian, but I know the trial evidence as well as any in the club. I don’t think he’d be a good boss, do you?” Cabal revised his estimate of Brian’s intelligence upwards by several categories. “You say he’s got your dad,” he said to Leonie.

“Yes."

“And your brother?” Cabal nodded and dropped the knife back into his pocket.

Brian seemed to wrestle with himself for a moment. “Don’t tell them I told you, eh? Back at the pub? I couldn’t take the looks on their faces."

Leonie nodded earnestly. “I promise. And he won’t tell them either."

Cabal said, “won’t I?"

“Do you ever plan to go back there?"

“Fine. I will not tell them, either."

Brian nodded back. “It were Moymore Island. He didn’t tell me straight out, but he were - was - so proud, he couldn’t help but hint. He flashed a map at me, and he left a ticket lying around in his room. I looked it up in an atlas as soon as I could. Moymore island."

Cabal held out a hand. “You’ve said it once. That’s enough. Don’t repeat it again. Ever, if you take my advice.” He looked up to the sky. “We shouldn’t have done this out of doors."

“That’s enough of that.” No point in terrifying the poor man, thought Leonie. If Twiccian had been watching, he was doomed anyway. She had one more question. "Have there been any others?"

"Maybe. I don't know for sure. Sometimes folk leave the group sudden, but no-one else talked to me about it."

“Thank you Brian. Thank you, thank you. Maybe you should leave town for a few weeks, if you can manage it. Look, if you need anything…,’ she dug into her purse, and Cabal sighed audibly. “If you need anything, contact me here. If I get back, I’ll be in your debt."

***

They left him there - the less he had to do with them from now on, the better. Leonie thought about him. Had Twiccian seen any of that? If so, he was dead. The guilt was like a sound blaring in her head, distracting her, but she ignored it. If it was him or her dad, he would have to take his chances. If that was what it cost, she would do it.

A check of the schedules showed there was no point in leaving until the morning. They returned to the hotel for the night.

Cabal awoke in the middle of the night. Again, he wondered what Horst was doing. Or having done to him. He was exhausted, and he was restless. He rose, dressed, put on his overcoat, and took the stairs down to the hotel bar, a seedy little establishment on the second floor that kept late hours. He did not want to drink, but from the street he had seen a balcony terrace that would be just the place for a quiet smoke. No-one else would be braving the November chill. No: December now.

He walked through the bar to the glass terrace doors. He stopped. Leonie was out there, watching the silent neighbourhood from the balustrade. She raised a hand to her lips, and the gaslight illuminated a cloud of smoke. He stepped back, intending to go to his room, but instead he opened the door and stepped into the cold night.

“Are you having a belated adolescent rebellion? Best to wait until your father can see you.”

"That's funny, considering which one of us acts like a child."

They smoked in silence for a few minutes, watching the streets below. Cabal said, “you seem distracted. I would estimate that there is only a fifty-fifty chance Twiccian saw any of that. He has other concerns at present.”

“So there’s a fifty-fifty chance Brian is dead."

“Yes. Better chances than some. Better than ours, possibly."

“Do you think so?"

Cabal extinguished his cigarillo by tapping the glowing tip on the side of the balustrade. He kept the butt for the sand tray at the door. "Yes. We’re acting according to Twiccian’s plan. We will probably die. Have you realised that your father is probably hoping you won't come after him?’ Cabal had known Frank Barrow very briefly, but they had been the sort of circumstances that reveal character. "Barrow wouldn't want you to die trying to save him."

Leonie’s voice was hard. "He doesn't have to want it. I don't see a choice. Do you?"

“No. But considering how often you have called my sanity into question, perhaps you should not use me as a guide."


	5. In which Leonie and Cabal encounter algae

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The waves slid from under them like greased hills. One sent them reeling into another, and that one lifted them before dropping sharply away. Leonie was sick.
> 
> Cabal wasn't, though he almost wished he was. Nausea would distract him from the error of judgement they had made by getting into this vessel. They had engaged the only captain willing to take them out late in a winter afternoon. Looking at him now, 'boat-owner' seemed like a more appropriate title than ‘captain.' It was hard to imagine anyone placing themselves under his command.

chill  
adj., _wintery_  


The waves slid from under them like greased hills. One sent them reeling into another, and that one lifted them before dropping sharply away. Leonie was sick.

Cabal wasn't, though he almost wished he was. Nausea would distract him from the error of judgement they had made by getting into this vessel. They had engaged the only captain willing to take them out late in a winter afternoon. Looking at him now, 'boat-owner' seemed like a more appropriate title than ‘captain.' It was hard to imagine anyone placing themselves under his command.

The steam launch was elderly and tiny. So was its owner. His nose was marked with broken blood vessels, and his eyes were rheumy. Even his cap seemed to have a film of age on it.

The sun cut sharply across the sea, almost level with the waves. The captain would have to return in the dark.

The island grew out of the ocean as they approached; it was ringed with sharply canted rocks that tore the swells to ribbons and sent them flying into the sky in sluices and fountains. In the centre, a tower of black stone sat as if it had been dropped there from the heavens.

The waves were freezing, and the wind chafed the salt spray on their clothing to ice. Even the boat owner looked cold. Cabal, of course, was unaffected. A stream of guttural syllables emitted from the old man. Cabal allowed himself a small frown. "He says he's not approaching closer."

Leonie stirred from her miserable huddle. "Tell him he damned well is. We can't swim this."

Cabal didn't disagree. He addressed the man in his own language, adding in some pointed looks and gestures. The boat owner shook his head again and accompanied his remarks by pointing at the rocks, the swells around them and, finally, at the setting sun. "He says there's no place to make a safe landing. He suggests we return to the inn and wait for better conditions. When it's calmer, he will be able to take the boat among the rocks."

“I’ve seen the inn. I’ll take my chances with the rocks. What about there?" Leonie pointed to a high, rocky spit that jutted out into the ocean. The rocks were fewer there, so the boat could approach. Could they use it to climb on to the island?

Cabal pointed and proposed something to the mariner, who gave him a look of frank disbelief. He replied to Cabal in a half-serious tone of voice, nodding in Leonie's direction. Cabal glanced at her, and replied, shrugging while he spoke. He turned to Leonie and continued in English.

"He says it won't be particularly unsafe for the boat. He's willing to try it. He wonders if I'm planning to carry you. I am not."

Leonie regretted her hard thoughts about the captain as he maneuvered the boat close to the spit. He watched the waves and adjusted the tiller an inch at a time. He changed the angle of the boat to bring them alongside, and gouts of water splashed over the gunwale and onto the passengers.

Slowly, as the sun sank, they approached a natural shelf by the water's edge. The boat was as near the spit as could be managed, but it wasn't within stepping distance. The boat heaved in unpredictable ways in the swells, and the black rock was patchy with algae. The disembarkation was going to require athleticism.

Cabal, without preamble, leapt lightly to the rock and took hold of the cliff face. He had found a relatively flat bit, and he took a moment to pick at a tear in his glove. Leonie threw the bags to Cabal and prepared to follow them.

Standing up felt dangerous. She got one boot on the gunwale, nodded politely at the captain, who was too busy struggling with the tiller to give her a glance, and took advantage of a rising swell to push off from the boat and towards the spit and Cabal.

She hit the mark she had been aiming for, but one boot went sliding off the slick algae as if it was oiled glass. It was only Cabal's arm that kept her from going head-over-teakettle into the buffeting waves. They had no more attention for the boat - only for the way to the island.

It was easier than it had appeared from the boat, but it was still harder than any hiking or climbing - and it was both - than Leonie had ever attempted. If she misstepped, she would be swimming wearing boots and an overcoat. If that happened, the numbness of hypothermia would probably be a welcome relief from the broken bones.

She was in front by virtue of the place she had landed. She squinted at handholds and craned her neck to see how the rocks ahead lay. At spots she had to make long steps or careful jumps, receive the bags from Cabal, and wait for him to follow her. He, naturally, had no difficulties with the climb, though his boots weren't nearly as rugged, and he never seemed to test his handholds.

The final heave brought them off the black rock and on to the island's scrubby turf. Leonie lay down flat on her back, relishing the solid ground and the relief of her aching muscles. Even Cabal sat down. They had not spoken since they left the boat, but it was a different silence from the one that had clogged the air since Leonie arrived at the house. A few stars appeared in the east.

There was a spectacular sunset brewing. Arms of violet and gold stretched out from the western sk, and soon it would be dark. The ocean wind blew straight over the island without interruption. It had left the coast of America a week ago, and it would blow over England by dawn. Nothing on the island grew high enough to challenge it.

Leonie staggered to her feet, and Cabal rose carefully. They took stock of their surroundings.

The island was covered with low, rubbery greenery that clung to the black rock. The centre of the island was flat, scraped low by some ancient glacier. The castle itself was a stubby tower built out and up at the corners. The few windows were narrow and high, and one couldn’t tell if they were glazed, shuttered, or gaping open to the bitter wind that sheared across the ocean.

Cabal spoke. "Is this more your idea of a lair?"

"Yes, it would do for the textbook illustration. And look.' There was a sign. A professionally painted wooden sign, bolted to a stake pounded into the moss and, presumably, the rock below. _Private property. Keep out. Structure is unsound; owner not liable for injury or death_. “Maybe you should get one, too.” Leonie wondered how Twiccian got to and from such a place. And wasn't it, well, a bit conspicuous? It had been awkward for them to reach, but not all that difficult.

The castle had a door. Only one: a double door, with two rings as handles. Leonie eyed them doubtfully. "Should we try to open it? I don’t see Alvin Lee anywhere. And this is where that other captain brought him."

"I don't see him set up in a little pup tent, no. Nor do I see his mouldering bones. Did you expect to find him here, with a flag for the finish line?"

"Never mind. Should we open the door?"

“Well.’ Cabal looked about them and kicked experimentally at a patch of moss. "I don't want to spend a night out here. But if Twiccian is watching, he's had plenty of time to see us coming. Let's wait another minute before we go in."

They listened at the door. They couldn’t hear anything over the pounding of the surf on the rocks. Leonie took off a glove and felt the planks, but there were no vibrations, no… she didn’t know what she might be looking for. She had encountered wards that were imperceptible. And you didn’t need wards if you had a dozen undead waiting to tear intruders to a pulp. “Do you think Twiccian might have more of those zombies here?"

“I wouldn’t be surprised."

“We’re going to open it anyway.”

“Yes. I don’t see that we’d gain anything by waiting."

“Well. Give me a minute."

She had already resecured her hair beneath her scarf to keep it from whipping into her eyes and mouth in the wind. She popped her valise open and withdrew a shoulder holster and a Smith & Wesson police-issue .38 revolver, which she loaded. She grimaced at the cold, removed her coat, put the shoulder holster on, shivered back into the coat, and slipped the firearm into its place.

The gun was nearly a sufficient caliber, Cabal mused. He watched the procedure with an ironic eye.

Leonie saw the look. “What?"

“That looked practiced. Picking up some new tricks with the Dee Society, are we? I can’t believe I haven’t asked; how is your 'fascism for undergraduates’ minor going?"

“This isn't really the time or place. Do you really want those to be your last words?"

“What would you suggest? 'For Dee and country?' "

Leonie tucked the ends of the scarf back into her collar and armed herself. “Here goes nothing.” And she took hold of the cast-iron ring and pulled.

The hinges screamed. Cabal was back a few feet, Webley raised, ready for, he hoped, anything.

The last rays of the sun illuminated a small hallway, totally at odds with the scale of the building. It was made of old stone, and the far end held a small door. They looked at each other. Neither of them wanted to go in. Leonie would nearly have preferred a smallish horde of undead to the banal little hallway; she didn’t like Twiccian when he was imaginative. “Can you think of any reasons not to go in there?"

“Beyond the obvious?” Cabal thought for a moment. “Yes. Wait here.” He walked to the place where the moss ended and bent down. He returned with moss and a rock. He put the moss on the end of his stick, extended it through the door, and withdrew it again. The moss was unchanged. He shrugged and threw it away. He took the rock and threw it down the hallway. It fell through the floor. Leonie's jaw dropped. He snorted. “Some would call that classic. I would call it lazy."

Using his stick, he tested the floor immediately beyond the doorframe. It was solid. He tested farther in; his stick’s point slid through the stone as if it wasn’t there. He removed his glove and touched the iron ferrule; he let it go immediately.

“It’s probably just a pit trap. The corridor may extend beyond it. I should be able to….” On hands and knees, Cabal felt for the edge of the illusion with the stick, careful not to put his hand through the floor. The first two feet appeared solid, but Cabal did not trust his weight to them. He bent over to find the tiny ring of runes that sustained the illusion.

A Webley Boxer handgun is a splendidly functional thing, he thought. Its manifold uses went beyond blowing the crania off zombies; it was also a signalling device, a blunt object that could stand in for a club or a hammer, and in this case it was an effective anti-thaumaturgical aid. The bullet clipped off a chip of stone the size of a walnut and broke the illusion to flinders.

The castle was a shell covering a giant pit of lava.

The molten stone moved like the waves outside. It fountained and dashed itself against the sides of a deep pit. It lit the interior with its own sullen light, a double of the sunset glow on the water.

Leonie had been struck mute for a moment. “That can’t be natural."

Cabal sighed. “It isn’t."

“Isn’t it just a little… gaudy, Cabal?"

He looked back at her. What did she mean?

“I mean,” and he was surprised to see she was trying not to laugh. “I mean, look at it. Who needs all of that to deal with Alvin Lee?” And she laughed.

Cabal saw her point. If one absolutely had to use lava, an entire lake of it was de trop. “Twiccian isn’t known for having proportionate reactions to threats.”

Leonie’s half-amazed laugh redoubled. “No, he really isn’t. I mean… the portals. Abducting my dad and his sleep mask with an eldritch…" she couldn’t finish, she was laughing so hard. “And he got the couch, too.” And she was in one of her fits now, really laughing, gasping for breath and holding her stomach. Cabal looked on stonily as she pulled herself together and poked at her cheeks. “Ow. That really shouldn’t be funny. My face hurts.”

Cabal couldn’t resist the obscure impulse arising from within. “You know. That ritual costs in excess of a thousand pounds each time he uses it." And she was off again. “But this is the man who chained an ancient, potent infernal force to protect his bookcase.” The laughter shook her body and made her feel warm and loose.

Eventually it subsided to giggles. The cold sobered her up, and when she looked around her, she had a feeling of anticlimax. “Well, I suppose the heroism and bravery will have to wait until we really do find them. I suppose this was too easy. I can’t say I’m looking forward to repeating the trip back."

“It’s as well we paid the captain to return in the morning."

They sat against the castle wall on the leeward side. Neither of them had brought a sleeping bag, but Cabal had a thin oilcloth folded into the bottom of the Gladstone bag, and it helped to break the wind a little.

They looked out at the water. There wasn't much else to see. The sunset light gave the ocean an antique gilding and made it look as luminous and dangerous as the molten stone.

“You’d think the walls would be warm, at least."

“If the spell allowed any fraction of heat through the walls, they would be too hot to touch."

“I know, Cabal."

They sat side by side, if not quite shoulder to shoulder, the oilcloth draped around them. The turf gave off a fresh smell when crushed. They ate a few sandwiches by the light of Leonie’s traveller’s lamp and drank water from their flasks; it all felt very familiar. It was full dark by the time they finished.

Cabal repacked his Gladstone. “Sleep while you can.” It would be an unpleasant night, cold and damp, but they'd had worse.

“Can’t sleep. Too many dreams."

She could hardly see him now; only the early starlight outlined him against the tower. He had stopped packing, and it seemed to her that he hesitated, or at least paused before answering. "How are you?"

Her breath caught in her throat for a moment. "Right now? Fine.’ And it was true. Sitting on this speck of nothing in the North Atlantic, miles from anything, a castle brimming with lava at her back, and shivering, she was as happy as she’d been for months. And how could she be, when her father was in danger? She felt a wave of guilt and fear. “Also, actually, terrible.’ Some night birds cried from the rocks. "Generally?’ She took stock. "Not that well, I suppose. It will pass. Why? How are you?"

“Fine. Of course. Why?"

“Oh, no reason."

And the silence lengthened into the night. The wind dropped. The moon rose and lit the waves.

The last sound Leonie heard before she slept was Cabal checking the Webley by touch and putting it down where he could reach it. That had been the sound of safety more times that she could count. She touched her own gun where it lay by her side and drifted into sleep.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks so much for your kudos and compliments; they're more encouraging than I can say.
> 
>  
> 
> ~~My unofficial chapter-a-week schedule has been going well so far, at least for me. I will try to sustain it as we move into the third act.~~ [edit: Hahahahahaha. Sorry, but this week was eaten by RL and by clearing up some questions of motivation. The next chapter should come within the week.]
> 
>  
> 
> And thank you for sticking with my unhappy, irritable duo. Better times are ahead.


	6. In which Cabal loses shirt buttons

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Leonie and Cabal go caving.

chill  
adj., _reserved_  


Leonie awoke with water on her face. A cloud-wrapped moon cast a haze of light over the ocean and the rocks, but she and Cabal sat in the shadow of the tower. They were sheltered from most of the rain, but gusts flung drops in their direction. Cabal was awake, and without discussing it they moved the oilcloth over their heads.

The patter of drops made it hard to sleep. The water collected in little dips in the oilcloth, which dumped themselves down the back of her neck or on to her trousers when they'd amassed enough weight to move the fabric. The surf was quieter than during the day, but even calm the ocean gulped and slapped at the rocks and the rain hissed as it met the waves.

"Are you awake, Miss Barrow?"

She almost jumped. "Yes. Despite the sybaritic comfort."

Cabal rested his head back against the tower, the shift sending a rivulet of rain on to Leonie’s lap. “Queen's pawn…"

“No, Cabal. You know I hate mental chess. And I don’t feel like playing.”

“Yes, so I thought when I got this in the mail." There was a quiet slap on the ground between them. It was her notebook.

"What is that doing here?"

“You hate mental chess."

She had forgotten; she sent it with his letters. She felt embarrassed by the gesture now; it seemed self-dramatising and mean. She had meant to be quite businesslike with Cabal; that had lasted about ten minutes. Instead, she kept lashing out then softening and then regretting both.

But she had to make herself clear. Chess, after all, had been the lubricant that kept their ridiculous friendship running; at times, it had been the only visible sign that, despite insults, fights, their inauspicious introduction, and differences in worldview that would have made an ethicist black out, that despite it all, things were well between them.

“No, Cabal. I don’t feel like playing."

He tucked his side of the oilcloth down more securely, but he didn’t reply. In fact, with the exception of that one vicious fight, Cabal had been… polite? She may have overestimated the impact of her desertion; probably he didn’t much care. Drop by drop, the rain puckered the notebook’s cover. There was no more conversation for the rest of the night.

Dawn came; a slow, miserable seeping of grey light over the ocean. The rain was intermittent, but the wind dropped, allowing the wet to hit them directly. Leonie moved closer to Cabal to make the most of the oilcloth. He didn’t seem to notice.

When it was day they stood and stretched muscles cramped by the chill and the wet. A breeze came while they ate. It halted the rain and blew the clouds away to reveal patches of blue sky through which the sun peered doubtfully.

Leonie spoke the first words of the morning. "When can we expect the boat?"

“Soon. He agreed to set out just after dawn, weather permitting."

“Well. We may as well look around for signs of Twiccian, unless you have a better idea.”

He did not. They did another circuit of the tower walls, looking for anything out of place. It was hopeless, Cabal thought. Twiccian might never have been to the island. Maybe he simply directed potential threats towards it and giggled.

When that was fruitless, they did a circuit of the shoreline. They reached the spit of rock they had used to leave the boat. Leonie broke the silence that had accumulated. "Are you certain the captain is coming back?"

“He seemed invested in negotiating the price for our return."

“Yes, but…. While the magma castle is spectacular, luring people to this island and then stranding them here would be practical and effective."

Cabal didn’t like ’practical’, let alone ‘effective.' It sounded too plausible. “By subverting the villagers?"

Leonie looked for his agreement. “Think about it. Only one man willing to take us to the island? Even if someone came looking for us, he’d just have to say he took us for a pleasure cruise and hasn’t seen us since."

Cabal thought about it. “So, even if we are too intelligent to jump into the lava, all Twiccian has to do is arrange someone to take our bodies away after a week or two.'

They looked at each other then. Cabal had spoken thoughtlessly, but his words fell flat. At the time, Cabal thought, the man and his shambolic little boat had been anything but ominous. But now? His hunched posture, his greasy hat, his debased dialect, his willingness to make a trip no-one else would consider, even the canny gleam in his eyes as he bargained - had it been a secret laugh? - seemed sinister. It seemed dreadfully plausible.

Leonie was bedraggled from the rain, her hair in damp straggly locks, and her scarf was spread out over her shoulders in an attempt to dry it, but her eyes were clear and her shoulders were squared.

She looked back at him. Cabal was quite calm, and as neat as if he’d risen in his own bed that morning, if a bit bristly again. They found some assurance in the other’s courage and relaxed a little.

Cabal continued. “This is guesswork. He bargained like he was planning to collect his fee."

“Yes. Well. Let’s take another look around the island."

And they did, with renewed attention to detail. Cabal went so far as to climb down onto the rocks in a few places and look among them. Which is how they found the crevasse.

***

The island reared up into a small headland behind it, and it was half-screened from open water by higher rocks. It was invisible from the land, and not easily seen even from the sea.

Leonie looked out over the water. “Should one of us stay by the spit in case the captain comes back?"

After a moment, Cabal shook his head. “We should stay together."

Leonie nodded. “You’re just saying that because you don’t want to roll around in the algae alone.”

Leonie wasn’t inclined to make jokes when she’d had a closer look. The entrance was low and narrow, and the highest waves sent water spilling into it. The rocks that sloped around the entrance were silky-slimy with dark green algae that lifted and flowed in the waves. There was no telling how far back the space went or how narrow it got. She had an urge to walk away from it. So Cabal had been right; it did look promising.

They had reached it by a path of slick shelved stone. It was a slanting aperture about four feet high, and it was hard to tell if there was a flat floor inside. It was narrower than she had thought. She hoped it had an important clue to Twiccian’s location. She hoped it petered out quickly so she didn’t have to go very far in. “So. Do you want to go first, or shall I?”

“Your shoulders are narrower. Take the lead."

She had rifled through her valise before coming down here and put a few necessaries into a net-bag she used for shopping. The housewifely little bag had caught Cabal’s eye, but he hadn’t said anything. He had kept his Gladstone bag, of course. Her valise stood abandoned on the headland above like a leather-sided tombstone; the next storm would knock it over, maybe push it into the waves.

She eased herself inside; the cave stank of the sea. She had to bend over at the waist to fit, and every move sent her knees and elbows into the walls. She yelped when a wave slopped into the cave, dousing her boots and ankles with freezing water. But there were flat sections for her feet. The cave went dark as Cabal followed her in.

The walls dug into her chest. She tried to picture Twiccian squeezing through here; she had never seen him standing, but she thought he wasn’t short. He was skinny, though. Thankfully, the passage didn’t narrow. Her progress was slow, but Cabal stayed back a few feet, either giving her space to move or searching for a way to fit his larger frame through without scuffing his suit.

Soon it was too dark to see the way ahead. She felt in her bag for her electric torch and switched it on. A white beam burst out, lighting the way. “There’s a bend coming up. I hope it’s a bend.' If it wasn’t, it was a dead end. It felt airless in here, though it was cold. She had to stop and take a few deep breaths with her eyes closed to quell the strain that threatened to burst into panic; she wasn’t claustrophobic. Not much. But there might be no way forward, and Cabal was struggling to make headway. She hoped he could back out if they had to go. She hoped she could. She took two more deep breaths and relaxed her hold on the walls. “Suck in your stomach, Cabal.” She hunched down and squeezed forward to see what she could find.

The torch had dimmed to its customary weak yellow almost immediately, but it was enough for her to see that it was, in fact, a bend in the fissure and not a dead end. She had to go on her knees to see that much. Thank god she had surrendered to wearing trousers for this expedition. She called back. “It’s fine. I… I think you can get through, and it might even widen out past here. Hold on there for a moment.” The turn was small, and the intermittent floor sank into a narrowing crack into the depths below it. It looked like a perfect place to lose a boot or wedge an ankle. She’d never been fond of caves.

Cabal’s voice was muffled and distorted. “Hurry up. If this is nothing, we need to get back to the landing point."

“Patience, Cabal. I need another moment to plan this out. Neither of us would enjoy it if you had to drag me out of here by my ankles.” He was right about the time. If this was a dead end, investigatively if not literally, they needed to watch for the boat. But if there was even the smallest chance it could lead them to their hostages, it had to be examined inch by inch.

Leonie had a route now. She put her torch into the net bag. It swung around wildly, but it gave light through the mesh. She hoped she wouldn’t break the bulb. She tucked her knees up under her chest, took a toehold at one wall, and pushed herself towards the turn, She dug her fingers into a crack and used her other arm to balance her. She pushed off the toehold onto a very uncomfortable seat. She let go of the handhold (ouch) and slid off the seat (ouch, ouch, OW), sliding down through a narrow bit to catch herself with another toehold.

Her hands were battered and blood ran from where she’d barked her knuckles, but she had the leverage to push herself through the narrowest part. And thank God, she was through, and there was a sort of floor and a place to stand without hunching. She cradled her chest and hissed with pain, now that she could.

“Come on, Cabal. It’s better beyond the turn.” And she played the light around her. Space to breathe, finally!

She was in a small room in the rock. The floor was eccentric, but it was absolutely beautiful: she could extend her arms and straighten the kinks in her spine. She heard Cabal following her through the turn. She shone the weak light around. Beyond where she stood, the floor and ceiling sloped upwards. It was dryish in here, and the air was as fresh as it had been since the beginning; some of these cracks must lead to the surface. And then her beam caught something she hadn’t noticed before. “Cabal!"

“Yes, Miss Barrow?” His tone was oddly constricted.

“Cabal, there’s something here you have to see."

“In a moment."

“Are you stuck?” She shone the light in his direction.

“No."

“But you’re not moving."

“I am strategising.”

“…because you’re stuck?” He didn’t reply, and she went over to check.

Something about the turn had gone wrong. His chest was wedged in the fissure, and he couldn’t get useful purchase with his hands or feet. He looked as dignified as possible in the position, which was to say not very.

The temptation to laugh at him was strong. Cabal was revoltingly agile, and this might never happen again. But there was something about his expression that gave her pause. He hated being helpless; he hated mockery more. He had once put up with a fair amount from her, but she didn’t have any claim on his forbearance now. She swallowed her smile and said gently, “that looks painful, m’boy. What do you recommend?' His shoulders relaxed a little, and she was glad. “What if I… why don’t you take my hand.” And in a few minutes of pulling, shoving, and violence to his shirtfront, they managed to extract him.

He had hardly emerged fully when she waved the torchlight at her discovery. “Look, Cabal. There’s a door.” It wasn’t exactly a door. It was a flat, bare spot on the wall, as high as a tall man and more broad; the shelving stone of the floor made a sort of staircase up to it. It was obviously a door.

“I,’ said Cabal, still panting, “am not going to touch that.”

“Did we come here for the entertainment value, then? Of course you’re going to touch that, or I am."

“No,’ said Cabal. “We are going to investigate that.” And he pointed at an undistinguished patch of rocky wall to the side.

The profundity of Leonie’s scepticism strained her powers of expression. “Really."

Cabal stood, brushed his coat, and realised he had only distributed the thin slime of algae more perfectly between his gloves and its surface. “Look. Look closely. Turn the torch off."

Leonie took a few steps towards the spot and switched off the light. It was invisible at first, even after the dim glow of her torch. But as her eyes struggled with the blackness of the cave, she could see something, almost beyond the range of human vision - a neat oval that contradicted the craggy contours of the cave. Was it the product of her brain, or a trick of the eye? She rocked from foot to foot, trying to gain a sense of its dimensions and depth; it was real, and it hung in the air inches from the cave wall.

Astonishment overcame her inhibitions. “How the hell did you see that?"

He smiled thinly. “Practice.”

Damn: she had given him an opening to gloat. She was out of the habit. “So why investigate this one and not that?” She waved at the door-shaped patch.

“The smooth wall is a ruse. I would bet - if someone could persuade me to do such a pointless thing as accept a wager - that it is trapped to vaporise, mutilate, or simply entomb anyone standing in this room if it is triggered.’ Leonie repressed a shudder. "This is the true portal."

Objects could pass through the oval; they did not project through to the other side, and they still existed when they were pulled back. They prodded and tested it for lethality as much as they could without risking a limb. It didn't lead to the lava, at least; the ferrule of Cabal’s stick came back without a change of temperature.

Their experiments at an end, Cabal sat on a rock, withdrew the Webley from his bag, and checked it. “What do you think it is?" He waved at the portal.

Leonie smiled a wry half-smile. “I think it’s a death trap. On the other hand, I hope it is a back door to Twitchy’s lab - in addition to, inevitably, a death trap."

“Will you go through?”

“If you do.”

“We will, then.' He went to the gate and held a black-gloved hand out to Leonie. She hesitated, and he snorted in derision. “We must not be separated.”

She tried to look like it made no difference to her. She gripped his hand tightly, the kid leather cold and soft against her fingers. They stepped through into a blinding light.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> "I miss you, I hate you, don't talk to me, please keep me from dying?" This chapter takes a breath before things get more exciting. 
> 
> My apologies for the delay in posting; I have learned that I'm going to be moving in the next month, so my writing schedule may take a hit, but I will do my best to keep it regular. 
> 
> Thank you so much for your comments and kudos; they cheer me up and help me through the sticky chapters. :-)


	7. In which Leonie quotes poetry

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "What if we could turn him over to the authorities?"
> 
> “What if we could turn him into a pickle fork by wishing it was so?"

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A day early, with my thanks for your comments and kudos. I hope you like this one.

chill  
adj., _unhappy_

_I_ was a child and _she_ was a child,  
In this kingdom by the sea,  
But we loved with a love that was more than love—  
I and my Annabel Lee—  
With a love that the wingèd seraphs of Heaven  
Coveted her and me.

***

 

The transition felt like nothing at all; Leonie thought the bright, bright light might be the magic of the portal transporting them - or maybe it had killed them and the light was The Light, and she should start marshalling arguments on their behalf - but no, with the light came a sensation of falling, and there were colours, and the ground walloped them a good one, shattering that hypothesis.

She lost her grip on Cabal's hand in the landing, but he was there, lying on his back, squinting and reaching for his blue glasses. She forced her eyes open against the glare, and they saw it at the same time.

They had emerged on - well, some distance above - a green field. Forty yards away, there was a mass of figures clustered around something. Or maybe they weren't people? Leonie squinted. Sculptures? Bare winter twigs…. Leonie’s abused eyes and brain finally connected properly. Skeletons. It was a ring of skeletons. As she watched, one perceptive specimen turned its skull and looked right at her.

They struggled to their feet and ran without looking back. Together they scrutinised the landscape, looking for anything to put between them and their pursuers: an artillery emplacement, a holy-water fountain, a fence. Cracking sounds shattered the air behind them. Something whined by Leonie’s side. “They have _guns_?” she shrieked.

***

The woods were purple.

They stood still for a moment and and panted; Leonie's lungs felt stretched, as if she had pulled them out of shape. Cabal tried to look unaffected, but his forehead was mottled from the strain.

And they had been lucky so far. Lucky the skeletons’ aim was rotten, lucky the undead had tripped or tangled each other at a critical moment, lucky to find themselves green-leafed fruit trees that screened them from their pursuers. But no matter how they sprinted or turned or doubled back, the skeletons always picked up their trail. They had found they could not stop, so they kept going.

A minute ago, they had come across a trail through the trees paved with fresh bark chips. A trail suggested inhabitation and two features of sufficient interest to be connected by a path.

They had seen higher, older trees ahead. The spaces between were wider, but the leaves were a peculiar colour, it was.... oh. Leonie gasped. This was a wood of wisteria trees; sheets of purple bloom hung heavy above their heads. The profusion of blossoms shed the elusive perfume from every corner.

The space among the trunks was as open as a cathedral. “Damn.”

Cabal was about to turn back into the relative cover of the fruit trees when Leonie reached out a hand and caught his coat. “Look; a cabin.” It was ringed around by the trees, and the blossoms dripped onto its eaves. They approached carefully, but there was no need. It was made of glass more than wood, almost as open to the forest as a stage. There was obviously no one inside, and the furniture was draped against dust.

Cabal disagreed. “We can’t hide there. They’ll see in immediately."

“We’ll find something. We can’t run any longer.”

Cabal paused, but his frustrated gesture ceded the point.

The door opened at the pressure of a hand. As soon as they were inside Leonie looked for a deadbolt, a bar - there was nothing. The door had been designed to close and open at a touch, like the door between a kitchen and dining room. There was a fluttering around the vaulted ceiling - a sparrow had followed them in.

It was a painter's cabin. That was clear from the easels, the shrouded canvases propped against the far wall, the wall of glass that admitted clear northern light, the model's throne. The cabinet probably held paints and brushes. The sparrow wheeled around the confined space, searching for a way out. Cabal saw the first skeleton reaching the edge of the clearing. “Hide!” They searched for cover; there wasn’t much furniture, and nothing that would hide them from something walking by the window, except for two stacks of canvases propped against the far wall, side by side. It took a brief, clumsy struggle to burrow behind them.

They pressed themselves into the floor, waiting for the tap of finger bones on the glass, the distinctive sound of bone on wood outside the door. Even the skeletons could figure out a door one simply had to push open.

The bird fluttered overhead. Leonie whispered, her voice almost a breath. “Damn. Aren't they drawn by movement?”

Cabal’s face was a few feet away, visible in his triangle of floor, wall, and canvas. “Maybe. Yes. Not movement alone, I think.” He patted the pocket where the Webley rested, but a bullet might betray their position, too. They had to hope the skeletons were too stupid to notice the bird or too smart to mistake it for their quarry.

After several minutes with no interruption, Leonie risked a glance around her canvas. “There’s more than one now. And they’re not moving on; they’re just milling around. It’s like they know we’re in the area."

" _Scheiße._ We might be able to wait them out."

“There must be a house near here somewhere, probably at the other end of that trail. There’s no kitchen here, not even a cupboard. And it would freeze in the winter. If we could get rid of them, we could start looking."

“Perhaps it would freeze, but we’re not in England; wisteria doesn't bloom in December."

They lay there. As Leonie recovered from their flight over the field and through the woods, she wanted to be on the move again. But they weren’t ready for another extended run, and there was a chance the undead might abandon the clearing once they’d checked it over. She wanted to look around the canvas again, but it wasn’t a good risk. The space behind the canvas was cramped and dusty. She needed a distraction. She alit on the one that was never far from her mind. "How do you think dad is?"

Cabal, comfortably cushioned on his overcoat, considered the question. She began to regret her half-rhetorical query; Cabal would tell her the truth, and who wants that when they're frightened? He came to a conclusion: "Twiccian is malicious, but not a sadist. I don't think he would treat your father poorly for its own sake, or for injuries that you had done him."

“Oh. Thank you, Cabal. You might be right.” He wouldn’t have said it if he didn’t believe it. It was something to cling to, at least.

Cabal continued as if she hadn’t spoken. "Horst... I do not know what uses Twiccian might have for a vampire. Or what might tempt him to abduct such a dangerous creature."

She had the feeling that Cabal had never considered leaving Horst with Twiccian. After all, you couldn't be manipulated by a hostage you abandoned; perhaps Cabal really did love him. She couldn’t think of anything to say. Cabal would scorn cheap reassurance, and she didn’t have any other kind to offer. A distraction, then. “Where are we, then, and how do we find Twiccian?"

“How could I know? We could be almost anywhere. We must hope that we have stumbled on the right path. We’ve seen one promising little clue already."

“The skeletons armed with guns? Yes, that does have a whiff of him about it. But the rest of this? I mean, can you picture him painting landscapes in his leisure hours? You saw the hole he lived in a few years ago."

Cabal considered, his head propped on his fist. “Did they seem to be watching something? Or guarding it? They were standing in that ring when we arrived.' The sparrow pecked at the floor just out of reach. “I don’t like all the coincidences. Our arrival near them. And they should have caught us several times. I mean, what are they doing now?"

Leonie snorted. “You look like you’re ready to go out and lecture them on their inefficiency. Don’t, please.’ She tried to fold her own overcoat into a cushion without disturbing the canvas. “You’re being paranoid. Nothing out of the ordinary has… well, nothing really unexpected has… you know what I mean. It isn’t strange that we would escape the skeletons or find the path or find this place."

Cabal was stubborn. “I don’t trust it. Something is manipulating us."

“Your necromancer’s intuition? We should be talking about what we’ll do if we find Twiccian."

“I hope we don’t find him at all. I would be very happy not to see his face at any point in the process. We will learn where Horst and your father are, get to them as quickly as we can, and get out."

Leonie turned it over in her mind. “That's fine as far as it goes, but what’s to stop Twiccian from doing it all over again tomorrow? We need a deterrent."

“I agree. One may present itself as we acquire our hostages.”

And if it didn’t? "What if we could turn him over to the authorities?"

“What if we could turn him into a pickle fork by wishing it was so?' Cabal's voice was scathing. “Which authorities do you have in mind? Let me guess. Are you jockeying for promotion already?’ Cabal’s sarcasm etched the air. “Let us turn our attention to more immediate problems."

But Leonie wouldn’t let it go so easily. “I'm trying to find a way to keep dad and me safe. We have to think strategically. And no, I wasn’t thinking about the Dee Society, but come to think of it, wouldn’t they be the better option? Organized, well-equipped, relatively humane - a proven history of capturing and holding necromancers?” She poured a little acid on her final words.

Cabal snapped back. “They didn’t hold me."

So they had wound up here again. “Only because I was stupid enough to help you out. I don’t look back on that with satisfaction, believe me.” Her tone wasn't angry.

Johannes had two cutting retorts jostling for utterance before she’d finished her sentence. But the fatigue in her eyes and the bitter twist of her mouth pained him. His discomfort distilled, condensed itself into words. Three words, unfamiliar in conjunction, came from his lips. “Leonie, I’m sorry.” And there it was.

Four feet away in her triangular cocoon, Leonie was aghast. In a thousand years, she had never expected an apology. From Cabal! And this wasn't a conversation she wanted to have while hiding from skeletons and rolling around in dust. But really, she reflected, she and Cabal didn't spend much time sitting in gardens sipping tea.

Her face was warm; her hands were cold. Her stomach hurt. "You're going to have to narrow it down, Cabal. Which failing are you apologising for?"

Johannes hadn't planned this. He was sorry, he realised with a burst of confusion, but he didn't know what to say. Perhaps, he reflected briefly, he should have composed apologies as well as self-justifications over the long, dank autumn.

At least she was listening. He looked for the simplest, truest words he could find. "For letting Twiccian's undead into the Dee Society. I am sorry for that.' But there was something else. "And I am sorry for having involved you without your knowledge. I should have known better than to do either.”

If he had been resentful or grudging, she could have dealt with that. If he had forced an apology out with sarcasm or scowls, she would have thought ‘typical,’ and replied coolly. But he was uncertain, and it tore at her. As a result, her first words were bitter and confused. "Yes, you should have known better.' Silence fell for a moment. Damn him. The one time it couldn't make a lick of difference, he was sorry. She tried again. “It's good, that you’re sorry. I'm glad. I hope it makes you more careful about what you do and who you endanger. And I don't plan to be near enough to find out. I can't trust you not to do it again. I… I do wish that wasn’t true. I wish I could forgive you - though I am still so angry at you, Johannes.’ Her voice shook, but not with anger.

"What do you want?" There was more confusion than anger in Cabal's question.

She knew the answer to that. "I want it not to have happened. Because if you did it once, you can do it again. Why shouldn't you?"

He didn’t seem to know what to say. What else was there? Leonie put her head down and pretended to rest.

She brought her head up in a hurry when sounds echoed in the distance; gunfire and voices. They glanced at each other in alarm; were there other living things here? Were they friends or enemies? Leonie couldn’t resist taking a careful look; the skeletons were wandering to the source of the sound, moving through the trees and emptying the clearing. They shifted to a jog as they entered the trees.

“I think we might have a clear shot at leaving now."

Cabal didn’t look at her as he nodded, and Leonie felt a dangerous impulse to take it all back, pretend it was all right, put her arm through his and… well, maybe not to go that far. She let the traitorous impulse pass; she had good reasons. Poor damn Cabal. Poor damn her. The atmosphere was going to be thick for a while.

This thought was wiped from her mind when they walked out the door, which swung gently closed behind them. Clinging to the branches of the purple-draped trees were dozens of birds, hundreds. Sparrows and larks, finches and swallowtails, pheasants and doves. They spangled the violet tresses of the wisteria with a paintbox of colours. For a moment, they were as still as painted birds on a screen: and then without visible cue, they abandoned their perches and took flight, filling the air with the slaps and rustles of their wings and leaving the branches waving.

Leonie adjusted her string bag over her wrist. “Fine. So there is something odd going on here. I concede the point."

Cabal didn’t reply. Leonie sighed internally. She did not need him moping, in addition to all the other adversities. But he was distracted, not sullen. He lifted his head. “Do you smell salt air?"

Leonie inhaled. “There is something. But that doesn’t make sense with these trees, does it?"

And yet: there was a breeze filtering through the trees and it had a smell of the sea. They walked into it. The wisteria wood turned into a grove of pink and white-flowered fruit trees, which thinned out below a grassy hill with a shaded bench at the top. It would expose them to the countryside, but they would finally see the lay of the land.

As they climbed the hill, they saw the woods behind them; the bands of flowered trees and a glimpse of the field in which they’d landed. A hill to the (assumed) west screened their sight, and the east was a haze of low-lying cloud. The salt smell grew stronger, and when they crested the hill, a vista of shore and sea opened out. The springy turf gave way to tough, thin grasses on the downslope, which gave way to sand. They must, Leonie thought, be on a bay here; the waves were respectable, but not huge. Green water foamed around rocks at one end of the beach. Below them, there was a dinghy pulled up on the sand.

Cabal was arrested by the view; his gaze was intent, and he looked away and looked back several times, as if testing his eyes. “Do you see anything strange?"

Leonie looked around them. “It’s all very pretty. And there must be gardeners looking after most of it, but we haven’t seen anyone. It doesn’t look tropical; I wonder where else you could find all these spring and summer blooms in December."

“Come down. And stay close. We haven’t seen any undead lately, but….” A bird landed on the bench; just a sparrow, but they both eyed it with disfavour.

“Right."

They zig-zagged down the hill, the land turning gritty under their feet and the sound of the waves echoing back from the hill. They’d been hunted by undead in nastier places, Leonie thought. If they did have to be harried by the walking dead, she’d take the sea views and flowering trees along with it. Cabal kept looking out to sea, distracted by some thought.

“I wish you’d tell me your brilliant theory, Cabal.” That only worked when she was able to keep the sarcasm out of her tone. It rarely worked. He wasn’t listening. He stripped off his gloves, picked up a handful of sand, and rubbed it between his palms, examining it closely. He tasted the seawater.

She investigated the boat, an ordinary little dinghy, weathered but not abandoned. The sail was in good condition, and it had cushions on the seats. There was something carved in the gunwale at the bow: _Annabel Lee_.

She half-smiled. “Did you ever read any Poe, Cabal?"

“Po Ling, who wrote the White Book of Death? I'm surprised you have. The acquisition policies of the Penlow library must be more liberal than I would have thought possible."

“No, Edgar Allen Poe.’ He looked blank. “Oh come on, surely…’ She had memorised it for school years ago, and the opening came easily to her lips: “ _It was many and many a year ago, in a kingdom by the sea, that a maiden there lived whom you may know…_.’ And her recitation dried up as the rest of the poem ran through her head. “Ah, ‘I and my Annabel Lee.' Like this boat. Never mind. Probably best.”

Cabal shrugged. “I don’t have time for poetry.” And he looked back at the water. If he didn’t know the poem, she wasn’t going to enlighten him. Had he really never read it? “ _The wind came out of the cloud by night, chilling and killing my Annabel Lee._ "

“Is there something odd about the curvature of the horizon to you?"

“What? That’s ridiculous. It’s….” Cabal had taken out his flick knife. He went to the boat and dug it into the gunwale, shaving off an uneven splinter.

She looked at the long, unbroken line of the ocean meeting the sky. It was wrong. It was curved too deeply. One always looks for the curvature of the earth in the skyline while at sea, but one never actually sees it. Leonie could see it here.

“Cabal. Take off your glasses."

His pale lashes lowered against the sun. “Why… oh. He didn’t get the spectra right. Strange. Very good, Miss Barrow, though you should have noticed that before now.” He came over to her, where she stood in her bewilderment. Yes, the skyline was curved, yes, the light was too honeyed for where the sun stood in the sky, but what the hell did that mean?

Inexplicably, Cabal handed her the splinter. She took it, but she couldn’t see anything remarkable about it. The wood was blond and firm, and the surface was weathered in a few places where the varnish had cracked. She looked up at him uncomprehendingly. Cabal’s expression became a shade more smug, and he gestured to the boat.

Leonie went to it and tried to find the place where the splinter fit; it had disappeared. The gunwale was whole. “Cabal, you…” He had cut it about here, where the seat in the bow was. And yet it was unmarked, though the wood matched the splinter in her hands in every way.

“Oh, it’s good. It’s beautifully done. My hat is off to whoever created it; it’s gigantic, and I think it’s even spherical - and it’s almost seamless.” There was something elevated about his expression.

“What do you mean, ‘he.’ Who? Are you saying we aren’t on earth?"

“Exactly. Someone made this. All of it!” And his gesture took in the whole scene.

Leonie was staggered for a moment. She knew that 'other places' existed - places where demons and stranger things lived - but she didn’t know there was anywhere like this. She really couldn’t picture cabins and shaded benches in Leng or wherever. “Are we dead? Forget I said that, I’ve just remembered the skeletons. That would be a rubbish afterlife."

“You have no idea. No, this is man-made. But by Twiccian?’ He seemed to be asking himself. "Surely not."

Leonie looked around her, trying to take in the idea that all of this had been made by a human being?

"As a result of recent discoveries, I have a suspicion about the ornithological oddities we’ve been experiencing. And you, little spy, ' Cabal clapped his hat over something, “are going to confirm it."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> May 27th update:  
> My apologies for the extended pause; the next chapter is, in fact, about 85% finished, but I'm moving house. Updates may be thin on the ground until early-to-mid June. Please forgive me, and please stick with Leonie and Cabal as they move into the next act of the story.


	8. In which there is gunplay

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> There was a gravel drive. Had anyone ever driven on it, Leonie wondered, and where would they have driven from? It wound through a garden of established plantings and mature trees.
> 
> It was too far.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> If you are rejoining after my hiatus, welcome back and thank you! 
> 
> Moving house is no goddamn picnic. Additionally, this chapter fought a bit - and then I cut it in half. And then I wrote as much back in again. This story keeps getting longer. We might be halfway? 
> 
> Please accept my apologies for the wait and my reassurances that updates will resume their somewhat erratic-but-more-frequent course. Especially because I've almost finished reading everything Scott Lynch has published.

chill  
adj., _discouraging_  


The bird hopped in a circle. It was tethered to a rock by a length of suture silk.

Cabal crouched to look it in the eye. “Why you have been watching us?” It pecked at the ground. “Why were so many birds gathered outside the artist’s cabin?"

It nibbled at the silk. It tilted a bright eye up at Cabal, then nibbled at the knot again. “Stop that.”

Leonie cleared her throat. “Cabal."

“In a moment. What is the nature of this place?” The bird groomed under its wing. It hopped until it was brought up short by the silk. It cocked it head again, looked up at Cabal, and defecated on the grass.

“Cabal, I don’t think it can understand you.” Leonie’s voice was carefully serious.

He looked at it darkly. He clearly thought Leonie had fallen for the bird’s act. He bent down further. “Are you the tool of Arthur Twiccian?”

The bird hopped. A wind tossed the trees around them. The sky had darkened, and leaves and flowers flew in the wind. Had the clouds been roiling in that intimidating style a moment before? They heard thunder far off. And a voice spoke from nowhere, from nearby. “Come to the house.” The voice was English, educated, female. Leonie and Cabal looked around the clearing.

“Good afternoon?' Leonie tried. “Is there someone there? What house?"

She looked at Cabal, who looked back blankly. They both looked at the bird. It was flapping at the end of its tether, but it had not produced the human voice. The voice came again, but not from their captive. “Follow it.”

“…pardon? It? Do you mean the bird?"

No reply came, but the threat of the storm eased. Thick, pale clouds infiltrated the thunderheads.

Leonie and Cabal were left alone with a bird tied to a rock. They hadn’t noticed the sense of presence until it departed.

Well, what else was there to do? Leonie wound her scarf around her hair, looped her bag over her wrist, and picked up the stone anchoring the bird. It fluttered for a moment, then settled on the stone. Leonie spun in place a quarter turn. The bird pecked at the tether, but in a moment it hopped to face its original direction. Leonie moved again; the bird resettled itself accordingly. Leonie waved her stone at Cabal; “we have a bird compass."

Cabal gave her the humourless, thin-lipped look that reminded her of her brief stay at a religious school. “And you are seriously proposing to follow it?"

Leonie sighed, and spoke a phrase she had worn thin by dozens of repetitions to one particular blue-eyed pain in her arse. "Do you have a better idea?"

Cabal folded his arms. “Never trust disembodied voices or forest animals.’ He paused. “Or, the good intentions of a man with a briefcase. Or, of course, Satan.’ He inhaled deeply. “The list is extensive. The point is that you cannot gad around following birds and bats and moles and trust that their interests are yours. All sorts of powers can influence animals. Twiccian, if you will remember, contacted me using a bird."

That gave Leonie pause. “Yes. I had forgotten. But let me list our other options: one, we somehow evade the skeletons and wander until we die of hunger or thirst. Two, we attempt to return to that island with the lava pit, where we can die of hunger, thirst, and, as a special bonus, exposure. Or, I suppose, lava if we get bored. Three, we can be killed by these skeletons; I don’t think Twiccian will do us the favour of having us dragged to his lair to gloat over us in person. Four…."

“Yes, enough. I get your point. Spare me further rhetoric."

“No, I don’t think you do get my point. We are on a timeline.’ She enunciated the words. "We have to take stupid risks, Cabal, or we won’t be fast enough or unpredictable enough. If this,’ and she gestured at the bird, "isn’t Twiccian, we might get something worthwhile out of it. If it is Twiccian, well, let’s hope the trap isn't immediately fatal. If it isn’t, we’ll turn it to our advantage. Neither of us likes gambling, but this is the time. And when we’re put in a tight spot, we are formidable."

Cabal’s brow was knit as he thought through her words. “Time to gamble?” He didn’t like the idea, but Twiccian would be prepared for risk-adverse behaviour. And they had wasted enough time already.

She smiled faintly. “Time to bet your tartan slippers we’re up to the job."

He nodded. “Arm yourself."

“Of course. Let’s take our stupid risks as intelligently as possible."

The bird led them back to the path through the woods. The breeze was chilly, and they donned the coats they had been carrying. The branches of the trees flexed in the wind, gusts that threatened rain. And then the bird led them into a stream. It was very insistent.

The path led over a brook by means of a charming little bridge. The stream was shallow, less than a foot deep, but the current was swift. The water tumbled over rocks and made a charming rushing sound, but farther up it ran in a smooth sheet across a bed of green limestone.

Leonie stood on the bridge, hoping there had been a mistake and that the bird had just been stretching its wings. It flapped at a right angle to the bridge, tugging at its tether repeatedly. There was, sadly, no mistaking what they were supposed to do.

Leonie secured the bird’s tether to her coat epaulette, threw the stone into the woods, and waded in.

Why, Leonie wondered, did being shot at by skeletons feel like it was all in a day’s work, but wet boots were a miserable indignity? Her sole amusement was watching Cabal wrestle alternately with the prospects of ruining his shoes or mincing down the stream-bed with them tied around his neck. The former won, barely, and he stepped into the water. “Come on. Your avian divining-rod had better be right.” And he started up the river, his trousers cutting two white wakes in the current. If he winced as it penetrated his socks, she couldn’t see.

The stream had cut down through the topsoil to the limestone, which was flat as a pavement, except for occasional rocks and boulders. Leonie had to give its creator credit; the river may not have been naturally occurring, but it certainly felt like it, except, possibly, for its unrelenting loveliness. Patches of white and purple flowers sprung from the banks, and little rivulets issued from the woods to splash down in tiny waterfalls.

They splashed along for a quarter of an hour or so without incident. The trees thinned out, and they watched for threats. The deep cut of the river and the slope of the terrain towards it kept them from being completely bare to the countryside, but they hunched down, feeling the exposure.

The discomfort of wet shoes had almost immediately been eclipsed by the labour of dragging their feet through the pull of the current. The banks were higher here, and they were undercut by the stream. Leonie wondered idly if that had been part of the original plan, or if the creator of this place had allowed the water to change the landscape.

Just then, Cabal froze. He craned his neck, and then as rapidly as falling, he crouched down and performed a rapid waddle to the overhanging bank, one arm holding the Gladstone bag stiffly before him to keep it above the waterline. Leonie followed as quickly and quietly as she could, without looking for the threat.

A moment later she heard the clacking of bone, almost inaudible above the splashes of their own footsteps, but clearer as they stilled. Apparently she wasn’t far enough under for Cabal; he took her elbow and tugged her back into the mud of the bank. They held their breath, huddled beneath the overhang. The moment dragged on excruciatingly. Leonie could hear the bones of their pursuers above, she felt the mud soaking through her hair, Cabal's shoulder pressed against hers. A mineral smell of water and wet earth filled her nose.

Something pale in the water caught her eye; she realised with a jolt that it was her string bag, caught by the current, floating away downstream. Damn! She must have lost track of the handles. There wasn’t much that was heavy in it; just clothes, the torch, some first aid supplies, and….

She lunged after it. Water foamed and thrashed about her knees. She could feel Cabal’s hand fumble at her back, but he was too late. She got her wrist through the handle as the bag sank and slipped away, but the weak sunlight struck her head, and she knew she was in clear view from the bank. She spared a moment for one glance up - up at the skeletons staring blankly at her from the riverbank, raising their weapons and stepping forward even now - and one at Cabal in the water below, mouth open, eyes wide in confusion and fury. She opened a hand in apology, put her head down, and ran upstream.

Cabal could stay there, hidden under the bank, she reminded herself. She had to run, but she was providing a fine distraction. But there was splashing, and a rising growl of German invective on the air behind her.

Bullets whined through the air; the skeletons were terrible shots, but Leonie and Cabal were hampered by the pull of the water, and they could spare only so much speed for dodging. Cabal’s first bullet cracked the skull of a forerunner clean open, but firing behind cost them time as well.

How had they been found? Was it coincidence? Were the skeletons Twiccian's creatures, or did they serve the disembodied voice? A bullet split the water before Leonie, and she automatically broke stride to avoid the spot. She turned her head to speak, and just behind her, Cabal raised his gun at a knot of bones and weapons which would be easy to strike, even running. More bullets struck the river around them or whined through the air.

And one did not miss.

Cabal clapped a hand to his side and stopped. It had not happened in slow motion, of course, but in the instant afterwards her mind replayed it, separating out the crack of gunfire, the instinctive movement of his hand to cover the injury, the strange sharpening of her senses and firing of her blood. Her endocrine system, already taxed, dug deep and squeezed out another wave of adrenaline.

The moment passed, and the air rushed out of Leonie's lungs. Her heart beat off-rhythm to the steady pounding in her ears. “Cabal! Are you hurt?” She had stopped without thinking about it.

She couldn't be sure, over the gunfire and the rising sound of clattering bones, but she thought she heard him snort. Certainly the look he gave her would have withered crops and turned milk. Thankfully, the skeletons had been slow to adjust to new developments, and while they had managed to close the gap somewhat, they were firing at the water ahead, where Leonie and Cabal should have been by now.

Cabal started trotting again. He didn’t stop to reply or examine the damage: just waded doggedly and sent the occasional bullet in the direction of the skeletons, the measured reports of the Webley splitting the afternoon air apart.

The bird, which had hunched down on Leonie’s shoulder, peeped, and fluttered its wings. The river ahead bent to the left. They were out of the trees entirely now, and the undercut was vanishing; the skeletons would be able to overwhelm them hand-to-hand soon. The river had exposed them to their attackers and kept them from dodging or hiding, but it had also kept their enemies at a distance.

Ahead, Leonie could see a thick stand of pines lining both sides of the river. She couldn't see further. If the house was there, right there, they might, with the help of a miracle, be able to pull ahead of the skeletons and get inside. If Cabal could keep up the pace. “Tell me, you Teutonic son of a bitch. How. Bad. Is. It?” She punctuated the question with bullets fired blindly behind them. Still no reply. Was his step uneven, or was that just the necessity of dodging rocks in the stream? She repressed a mad desire to aim at his heels. Watch him ignore her then!

They were almost at the pines. The overhang had all but vanished; soon they would have nothing but speed to keep the skeletons away.

"How bad is what?"

It was hard to tell, with the running and gunfire, but she thought he sounded annoyed. "The bullet hole in your side, you monumental ass." This was bad. She needed Cabal in one piece. A slippery feeling of nausea rose in her throat. Why had he followed her? What would she... "How am I going to storm Twiccian's lair without a functioning necromancer?”

"Hardly... A concern... If the remaining... skeletons... Catch us.' He was an odd colour. "Keep running."

They were among the pines now. The bird burst into a chorus of twitters and tried to launch itself across Leonie’s collarbone. “Out of the river. To the right!"

They floundered up the slippery bank and ran through the trees, the needles fragrant around their feet. Bad, bad, bad, said the hollow thuds of her feet on the ground. They needed more than temporary cover, they needed a place to examine Cabal's wound, regroup, somewhere she could calm the tremor in her gun hand. The skeletons still sent random bullets into the trees, but Leonie and Cabal had stopped firing; there were too many behind for them to destroy. Their only hope was speed and cover; they fled.

The land fell away in a slope: the lower branches obscured the land ahead. They slithered down through the dry forest litter, risking a fall to gain a lead.

They reached the foot of the incline, and as they ducked under the lowest branches, they could see the house; thank God, there really was a house, a fine large house that might keep the undead out, if they could reach it before they were caught. There was a gravel drive. Had anyone ever driven on it, Leonie wondered, and where would they have driven from? It wound through a garden of established plantings and mature trees.

It was too far.

Cabal was slowing, and his fingers were red against his black coat. When the skeletons caught up with them, they would be overwhelmed. Still running, Leonie put one hand on his back, pushing him forward. They could see the house more clearly now, see a front door flanked by trimmed hedges…. The skeletons were too close; they could hear the rattle of the bones behind them.

He shook her hand off, put his free arm around her, and shoved her toward safety. "Run, you idiot. Try,” he snarled. And without warning, he turned at bay, as if to hold them off. She was caught off-guard, and she fought to arrest her momentum without plowing face-first into the gravel. It was totally hopeless, the _ass_ , did he think she'd just leave him... She scrambled back to him as he levelled the Webley at the awful sight that now confronted them.

Side by side, they shot repeatedly into the nightmare mass of bone and steel that surged over the grounds like an oncoming tide. Pursuers dropped. The fallen tangled the feet of their fellows, but it barely slowed the advance. They were so close Leonie could see the rust on the assortment of weapons they carried: guns and swords and polearms scabbed with red-brown patches.

The skeletons rushed over the last few feet of field. Leonie and Cabal flinched toward each other and… were not skewered, slashed, or shot. The skeletons had piled into an insubstantial wall with such speed that the forerunners were fractured by the weight of those behind them. Leonie looked down at her ankles. She was standing in the remains of a hydrangea bush. "Warded. The gardens of the house are.... Did you know it was warded? I thought we were dying. Heroically, of course.” She was dazed.

Cabal's voice was more than usually sardonic. “In my experience, one never does. Excuse me. I should like a flat surface on which to bleed." And one dripping hand pressed to his side, Cabal stumped up the drive to the front door.

***

The skeletons were dismayed, as much as their condition permitted it. After some sorting out of whose bones were whose they circled around the ward, unable to pass. But there was blood on the ground. They knew the smell of blood, at least. And now that they smelled it, they could follow it anywhere.

***

The front door opened at a touch; it, too, was without a lock. And why not, when you had your own pocket reality and wards that could stop an army? They tracked dirt in through the front hall; there was a parlour there, and Cabal limped to the chaise and sat, careless of his blood on the upholstery.

He had no sooner sat down than Leonie’s fingers were on his waistcoat buttons. He swatted at them. "I was shot in the side, not the hands. Do you mind? I can deal with this. Just leave the first aid supplies and...."

"Oh, by all means, Cabal, bleed out on the furniture while you fumble at your buttons and stitch up your side with your non-dominant hand. Far better that way. I'll go arrange a shroud from the household linens, shall I?’ She had made her point, but having an outlet for her anxiety felt so good she decided not to stop. "After all, I doubt my delicate feminine constitution could stand the veritable hurricane of eroticism I would experience peeling you out of your filthy, gory - _thank you_.”

Cabal had raised his hands in mock-surrender. "Your puerile sarcasm notwithstanding, I have been managing without your assistance. You are not necessary. People have been shooting at me for years, you know."

"Mmm, did they used to hit you so often? Have you considered that you may be slowing down?"

For all that, she was heartened by the exchange. He just didn't like being reminded that he was, like all humans, a grab bag of frailties and mismatched chimpanzee parts. If he hadn't grumbled, she would have been worried.

Her fingers slipped on the waistcoat buttons; the blood had clotted on the tight little buttonholes. There had been that one time he had gone quietly. They made it back to the deserted base camp. Cabal had taken a bad fall down a cliff while eluding something squamous. His injuries looked bad, and he was quiet in a way she had tentatively labelled "Cabal, shaken." She had stitched him up, and it had taken until morning to determine that his knee was only bruised, not fractured. But he'd taken a hit to the head as he fell. She signalled for help, and then sat up through the night, waking him at intervals and making sure he wasn’t disoriented or confused. His comments became increasingly testy.

She had read to keep herself awake. Well, she had pretended to read. If she recited a stanza of _In Memoriam_ she could immediately, viscerally, remember her monstrous shadow shivering on the tent canvas and the humming of the wind in the guy ropes. She had read the line "I sit within a helmless bark,/ And with my heart I muse and say...” over and over, but she couldn’t make herself understand the words. And then she would say Cabal’s name, which would rouse him, and she would ask him if he knew where they were, and he would say Hell, because in Hell, no-one was allowed the privacy of their tent and a full night of sleep. Eventually he ran out of complaints and stayed awake. They played mental chess and argued about mulching until dawn.

The last button popped open, and she pushed sweat and tears out of her eyes. She pulled up his shirt and undershirt to examine the wound. For a moment the blood obscured everything, and she suppressed a betraying gasp. She swabbed at the mess with a clean handkerchief she tugged from Cabal’s pocket. As she got a sense of what was exposed flesh and what was simply scarred and bloody skin, she swallowed an equally betraying sigh.

She glanced up at Cabal; he was looking at the room. His cleaner hand tapped the side of the chaise as if he was waiting for a slow teller at the bank, but she knew he was waiting for her report.

“Well, it’s going to leave a mark. The bullet tore a bloody groove out of you, but it didn't lodge inside or touch anything vital, as far as I can see.' The wound was a messy raw thing: some skin was simply gone, torn away by the projectile. "It can't be stitched. If you were anyone else, I’d tell you to go to a hospital. If we were doing anything else, I’d tell you to go home and stay in bed for a week. As it is, it’s up to you. If you can keep it from getting infected, I think you'll be fine. Lie back and clot. You can take a look at it and decide when I bandage it."

Cabal sneered, but he allowed himself to sag back in the gore and close his eyes.

Leonie selected a bottle of sterile wash from the first aid kit. She used to complain about its weight, until the first time she'd needed it. She hesitated. "This is going to hurt, I'm afraid."

“Oh really? You had better not do it, then."

She swallowed and her shoulders relaxed. The sarcasm reassured her, even as the smell of blood filled the air. She set to work with the wash and sterile pads. Thankfully, they’d been in Cabal’s bag, not hers. “So, here we are at the house. Isn’t something supposed to happen?"

"Something _is_ about to happen. You are about to tell me what you were doing back there and what is in that bag that made you expose us both to gunfire. If I find out I was shot to preserve your father's favourite pair of slippers...."

She interrupted him. “I’m sorry you were shot. I’m really so sorry. If you’d just stayed under that overhang…."

“You’re saying it was my fault?"

“No! Not really."

“Not really?"

“No, not….' Leonie was losing ground, obviously not sure what to say. She paused. “I lost my head.’ She pressed her lips together. “I saw the bag floating away and just didn’t think. Sorry, Cabal. Sit up, please."

Cabal levered himself upright and considered her apology. Leonie was apparently focussed on bandages, and the pain made it hard to focus, but there was something fishy about her sudden admission of foolishness. Neither the action nor the - ow - concession were in character, and - _Charlie Darwin’s barnacles, the pain!_

She spoke again. “You could have died."

He snorted feebly. "We may yet."

"Oh yes? What about the Great Work?"

He swallowed a surge of irritation at her ironic tone and made himself choose his words. "It is still my priority.” He paused. “But I find... it is not my only responsibility. To the exclusion of all else.”

Leonie let the soft cotton bandage pay out between her fingers as she wound a tight compression bandage. How bitter it was, to hear him say that. How nice it would have been to believe, once upon at time. “You didn’t used to lie.” The words tasted wrong as she said them.

“And I,’ he said, "am getting tired of your insults and slurs. You need my help? Fine. Be civil. And accurate: I cannot recall ever having lied to you.” He drummed his fingers louder on the side of the chaise. “Is this about the Dee Society again? I admit, I made a bloody hash of it. I can hardly credit that you put me on some kind of pedestal…."

“…more of a footstool. Just enough to bring you up to eye level…."

“…but I have not knowingly misled you about my aims or what I am willing to do to achieve them."

Perhaps, Leonie thought, that was technically true. But now she knew that had hidden things. “If you’re blaming me for not realising what a bastard you are, that’s not in very good taste."

“I’m not…’ he moderated his volume. “In this room, I am unique in not caring where the blame lies. But whatever you blame me for, don’t blame me for misleading you."

She put on a burst of brisk efficiency in her bandaging and changed the subject. "Did you know that would happen? With the wards?"

"Ow. No. It never occurred. Why ward a house in a pocket reality? But Twiccian or I would do the same."

An educated, English, feminine voice said, “this seems like an opportune moment to interrupt."


	9. In which Cabal finds a book

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "To the best of your knowledge, then, is he a man of good character?"
> 
> Leonie evaded the question. "Why do you need to know?"

chill  
adj., _standoffish_  


An educated, English, feminine voice said, “this seems like an opportune moment to interrupt."

Leonie leaped to her feet, her skull narrowly missing Cabal’s chin. He straightened, then flinched back as Leonie surged past him, then cursed when it hurt his side. They glared into the corners of the room, but no one was there.

"Excuse me, Ma'am,' asked Leonie, for the voice had the timbre of age. “And don't feel you must answer, but are you invisible?"

"No, Barrow.' The voice had an air of authority. "I am what is left of Miss Edith Uncumber, and I am, among other things, this house. I am fully visible. There is clean water in the tap, and don't be concerned about the chaise. If you need bandages, there are linens in a closet upstairs. See to Herr Cabal; I will wait."

Leonie folded her arms. She didn't move. “I think we’d better talk this over first, Miss Uncumber. Cabal will do for the moment.” And she didn’t want to miss this conversation.

There was a brief, pregnant pause. "I take it that is agreeable to you, Herr Cabal."

"Yes, Fraulein."

“Hmph. Very well."

The room was richly decorated in the style of the previous century. End tables jostled heavily carved and upholstered furniture for space; tiny pictures crowded together on the walls. Velvet curtains like archbishops’ robes hung about the windows, and the floor gleamed with polish.

One large painting dominated the room; Leonie walked over to examine it. Two women sat in a clear grey light that lay honestly on their features. One had a broad, pleasant face, black hair, and Asian features. The other was an older woman of European descent, with a bony, patrician look and grey hair confined under a lace cap. They looked up at the viewer as if they had been interrupted in a conversation.

“That was Miss Lee. And me, of course. It was one of her last works."

Leonie looked closer; the table by the younger woman’s elbow held a painter's palette, splotched with colour. The hand resting beside it was smudged with pigment; Leonie thought it might be the very hue of the upholstered chair in which she sat, as if the painted painter had been painting her own portrait. Miss Lee's eyes held a hint of humour.

Miss Uncumber sat straight-backed in her own chair. She held a small, thick book; the painter had detailed the antique binding and the uneven pages. Her hand obscured the spine, but Leonie didn't think it was a novel.

“It was her cabin we hid in, wasn’t it?"

“Yes. I wish you had taken a moment to look through the canvases. They are very good."

“We were occupied with the skeletons, ma’am. Was she your companion?”

“My secretary.” But the ghostly voice warmed, despite the correction.

Cabal frowned. Leonie knew that look. In one solitary way, Cabal was as innocent as a spring lamb. She would have bet her set of Pepys' diaries that he was wondering why Miss Uncumber had sat for a portrait with her secretary, and why it was framed in the parlour. She could see the moment he abandoned the question for more immediate matters.

He cleared his throat. “Miss Uncumber. What is your nature? You are not a ghost."

“Of course not, young man. Think of me as a kind of _genius loci_. A spirit of the place,' she translated unnecessarily. "I have a limited ability to affect the land and creatures. And as much as I live, I live in it."

“The birds?” Cabal guessed.

“Yes. And the sounds that drew the undead from the cabin. And I was able to snag a few skeletal feet as they chased you."

"So the skeletons are not yours?"

"Mr. Cabal! The idea. I never trifled with necromancy. It is, you will allow me to say, a _déclassé_ form of the Art."

"I can hardly prevent you from saying it. Did you create this place yourself?"

“I did. It was my great work; and one of noble scope and beauty."

“It was your residence?"

“Yes. Miss Lee and I removed here as soon as it was completed."

Cabal frowned. “Why did you bring a secretary? Did she assist you in your researches?"

“No. She was a social and business secretary, and in any case, I quite retired. I pursued gardening and minor improvements to this dimension. You will also find a small selection of my watercolours in the guest bedroom, completed under Anna’s tutelage."

“Then why bring an employee….” Why was Leonie making that face at him? She rolled her eyes and gestured at the painting. Cabal’s eye fell upon the hands of the two women in the picture, which blended, from a distance, with the light colour of Miss Lee’s skirt. Their fingers were interlaced. Ah.

Edith ignored Cabal’s question majestically. "And upon my death, I arranged to inhabit this place."

Hm. ‘Arranged’ was a pitifully inadequate summary of what he suspected had been a major theurgic undertaking, but he would pursue that question later. "Why have you intervened to help us?"

“You are the first to come here since I died, besides Twiccian. I was curious. And then, because… you are a magus, are you not?"

Cabal’s nose wrinkled faintly. “I am primarily a scientist.”

“I'm sure what you call it is no business of mine. You are one of _those_.’ The emphasis was derogatory. "A necromancer; I heard your girl say it. I have gone to extraordinary and tiring lengths to preserve you because of that, and because I find you are enemies of Arthur Twiccian. Mr. Cabal, there is something you must do for me. And for Anna."

Cabal was not especially alive to conversational nuance, but he knew this kind of talk had to stop now. “I must do nothing. I do not have energies to spare, at present."

"Barrow seems like a healthy, sturdy sort of person. I am sure she can perform the grosser exertions."

Cabal darted a glance at Leonie, whose eyebrow was reaching ever higher. ‘Barrow’ and then ‘girl’ and then ‘your girl’ and then, to cap it off, ‘person.’

Leonie cleared her throat. “Just to clarify, Miss Uncumber, Cabal is not my employer. And I am not his servant."

“I see.’ There was a hint of disquiet in Edith's tone. "You must forgive me, Miss Barrow. I know time must have proceeded apace in the outside world, but… your trousers. And your parcel. And, if you will forgive me, your language. I assumed you were in service."

Leonie glared at Cabal, who had quite recovered from the insults to his profession, and was looking smug again. She tried to rise to the occasion. “I suppose I am… direct with Herr Cabal. But those conversations were private, so I will not apologize for anything you heard. But we’re off topic. You may call me Leonie.” Her age required that much respect, even if one privately regarded her as an imperious old battle-axe of a genius loci.

“Thank you, Leonie. Yes. It has been about ten years since Arthur Twiccian invaded this place.

“Anna had been dead for ninety years, then. She died young. I had lived out the rest of my life here. After, I inhabited this house and these lands for decades. I had no idea of being disturbed; the way back to the world was sealed, almost. But Twiccian found a way in. I had no power to prevent his invastion; he took possession of it, created his own doors, and overran it with his foul creations."

“Worst of all,’ and the bright eyes in the portrait seemed to gleam with an ice-pick glint, “he took the body of my darling girl. He took it from under the stone where I had placed her, and he animated it with his own sickening powers. Even now, she walks through these gardens we made together, a continual offence to her dignity and our shared regard.

"If you put her to rest, Herr Cabal and Leonie, I will see you into Twiccian’s own realm if it means the destruction of every stone of this place."

Leonie looked at Cabal. He was no help at all. "Miss Uncumber, I'm so sorry to hear that.’ The words fell flat. "It truly is awful. Maybe we could come back, when our other job is done. But first, we must rescue our families."

"No. I don't care about your families. It must be now, before you get yourselves killed or decide you needn't return. Mr. Cabal?" Edith clearly didn't consider any reply official until it had been ratified by him.

He stirred himself. He shook his head. "I am in sympathy, truly. More than you could know. But...."

"It can be done, and you can do it. I demand it, Mr. Cabal, on your honour as a gentleman."

He snorted softly. “Don’t."

“On your duty as a Christian."

“Please."

“Fine, then. If you cannot be moved by entreaty….”

“Oh, was that entreaty?” Leonie enjoyed hearing Cabal’s sarcasm aimed at someone else again.

“If you cannot be persuaded to do your duty, Mr. Cabal, I will use bribery. I am in a position to show you the door Twiccian has used to pass between his realm and mine."

“That isn’t enough of an inducement to make me trail my internal organs over your estate."

Edith had her answer ready. "You are short on time. I have heard her say it. You will not find the door without my assistance. And don't be a child; I heard Leonie say you would be well."

Leonie did not find herself warming to Edith Uncumber. “Yes, unless he strains himself by rolling around in the dirt fighting undead. Finding the door is only one of our problems; I’m not sure it’s worth risking our lives."

"If you can't find a way to manage a simple task that doesn't involve brawling on the ground...."

Cabal ignored the argument for a moment. He was tired. He was in considerable pain. He was out of patience with imperious sorcerers, with god-bedamned skeletons, with planes and portals and puzzles. He would have given his copy of the Lemegeton to have Arthur Twiccian in his revolver sights and a train ticket home in his pocket.

"...How do you even know this door of yours goes where we want?” Leonie finished.

“I do not know,' Edith replied. She didn’t much care, either. “But if you refuse to come to my aid, I shall drop the wards on this house. The skeletons have scented your blood, Mr. Cabal, and without my help they will have you in a matter of minutes. And Leonie here."

This was a cause for some silent dismay.

"I think I'd rather you called me Miss Barrow."

***

Leonie sat at the dinner table, organizing supplies. Cabal had been directed upstairs by Edith to take charge of the magical preparations. Leonie checked their ammunition; they had both spent it freely against the skeletons. They were running low.

Cabal and Edith had bargained about how Anna was to be laid to rest. Cabal, ever the pragmatist, had at first refused to promise anything. He had muttered something about a large-calibre bullet being as clean and thorough as anything going.

“It must be a Quiet Sleep, Mr. Cabal. I will accept nothing else. You will put Anna’s body to rest with dignity; she will not be hewn limb from limb or torn apart with a bullet."

Leonie could tell Cabal recognized the term, because he didn't like it. He refused ("impossible”); objected ("and I am to do this with forty skeletons hanging off me?”); cavilled ("I'm sure it can't be performed so long after death”); complained ("all this fuss when some simple massive physical trauma would have the same effect”); and finally, in the face of Edith's implacable persistence, assented. “But I hope you have it written down somewhere."

“I do. In the library. Up the stairs, if you don’t mind.” At the prospect of an unrifled occult library, Cabal managed to rise to his feet.

The house did not feel disused in the slightest, he thought; it might have been under the care of a careful household staff. He guessed that Miss Uncumber had made her house dustproof and hadn’t included mildew among the approved organisms.

The broad hallway was floored with broad, shining planks and the walls were wainscotted. Cabal was led past closed doors, some of which must be bedrooms. The hall came to an anticlimactic end with an odd little turn and four narrow stairs leading up to a door.

Cabal walked into a bare room. No: it wasn’t bare. It just seemed bare after the welter of picture-frames and draperies below. The floor was polished wood, scuffed and used. There was a bare desk, scarred and blotted with inkstains. A single bookshelf stood at the opposite end, away from the light cast by a skylight. The walls were a pale, unmarked grey.

Cabal relaxed a degree. This was a work room. His own was cluttered with the tools of chemistry and arcane biology, but Miss Uncumber would have no use for them. Her specialty had been less concrete, and wildly more dangerous. Retired, his foot, he thought, looking at the tattered desk chair; that must have come from her laboratory back in England.

“The incantation is in _LeRoux’s Miscellany_. In black covers, on the lower shelf.” Cabal was happy to rifle the shelves. He eased black-bound volumes off the shelf one by one. Her library had not been large, but everything was the best.

She broke the silence. “Mr. Cabal. Can Miss Barrow be trusted? The conversations I have heard have not filled me with confidence that she will follow your lead."

“In this particular situation, I believe Miss Barrow would follow Satan himself. Twiccian erred when he placed himself between her and her father.’ He changed the subject. "This place is a remarkable achievement. As is your current state. Tell me, how did you achieve it? You put your soul into this place, did you not? Literally. I wish I knew how you managed it, on the point of death."

“…you have been most reluctant with your assistance. I hardly see why I should answer your questions, especially ones of such a personal nature. Have I asked you the reason for the bizarre arrangement of your hair?"

Cabal did not reply. He took a small volume from the shelf. It was a small, thick book in antique binding. The pages were uneven. He held it gently, as if it were a newborn animal or a vial of acid. "When you told us about your current state, I wondered. I thought you might have this. The Book of John the Presbyter of Syria. The best and most complete guide to soul-magic ever written."

The temperature of the room dropped several degrees. "Mr. Cabal, if you try to leave this place with it, I promise that you will regret it."

He stood, crossed the room, and placed it on her desk. Miss Uncumber had been a powerful practitioner, far more powerful than Cabal had ever aspired to be. He would have to tread carefully. “If you hold miss Lee in half the esteem you imply, you would do anything to release her. But no. I was not planning to steal it."

"Why not? If you are a necromancer..."

"I am a scientist. And a necromancer. And I steal books as easily as I breathe."

“Then…?"

“I would rather deal with you openly."

“Mr. Cabal, such things are not for sale. And what could you offer me? The only thing I want, I am forcing you to do. Unless….” An idea had just occurred to her. Cabal jumped on the opening.

“Unless?"

"Can you guarantee that Twiccian will die?"

Cabal was disdainful. "No. Of course not. For two reasons: one, I don't plan to get close enough to kill him; and two, I am not a hired assassin. I don't 'bump people off.' Twiccian deserves a bullet in the head more than most, but if you want him dead, hire a nasty little man with a long range rifle."

Edith sighed. She didn’t have lungs, but some habits died hard. "It is not simply a matter of… of remuneration. I am aware of what you could do with that book. You could raise servants that would make Arthur Twiccian's look like bellhops. You could create atrocities of which he has never dreamed. I cannot let such a power go into the world without knowing how you would use it."

“That is not my ambition."

"What is, then? Why, young man, do you want it?"

Cabal fell silent for a moment. "That is personal. I will simply say that the manipulation of the soul is germane to my studies."

“…if you were trying to soothe my worries you have failed. There is a further reason I cannot allow you to take it: that book is the reason Arthur Twiccian keeps this place connected to his lair. He has never wished to chance my wards personally, and his minions cannot gain entrance without him. You are proposing to take it into the heart of his power. No, it won't do, Mr. Cabal. I dare not take the responsibility for it falling into his hands."

“You realize this may be the only copy in existence? I have heard rumours of others, but this is the first one I have held. You speak of the dangers, but….’ Bereft of words for a moment, Cabal clasped the book in his hands. "It’s frankly a wonder this place didn’t kill you in the making of it. You know what it is to take risks in pursuit of an impossible goal. Do you dare take the responsibility for burying this knowledge, perhaps for ever? What of… what of the good it could do in the world?”

“Is that what you would do with it, Mr. Cabal?’ She sounded honestly curious. “Good?"

“I would correct something that should never, ever have happened.” He heard the force of his words echo in the small, spare room.

Edith allowed him a moment to be embarrassed for his passion. “You worry me, Mr. Cabal. But you intrigue me as well. Leave the book here. Do not raise the subject again today. I must think."

Leonie stepped away from the narrow stairs. Maybe she wouldn’t interrupt Cabal to discuss food supplies. She had heard more than she’d meant to. Like Miss Uncumber, she had to think.

***

Leonie packed the supplies into the Gladstone and her string bag, leaving space in Cabal’s luggage for eye of newt or whatever he was gathering upstairs.

She paused for a moment. She scraped Cabal's blood from under her nails and thought. Was it warming or depressing that the moment danger threatened, they were back to cursing and shoving each other towards safety?

So: admit it. She was angry, disappointed, betrayed - but she didn’t hate him. And now, she was struggling with a desire to forgive him.

She couldn’t. They would only wind up in this same position again, whether it was in a month or in a couple of years. What would happen when innocent people got in the way of his ambition? She had learned things about him…. He must have been hiding them from her. But while that was the only rational solution, it nagged at her; this was Cabal, after all: a man who seemed to be dedicated to displaying all his defects as early, as frequently, and as hard as possible. It wasn’t until you spent time with him that a few diffident virtues came to light.

And the matter of this book: she was troubled. She hadn’t lost all sympathy for Cabal’s hopeless quest, but she was no longer persuaded it was harmless. It might be better for everyone if he never got that book, whatever it was. He wanted it badly. She was surprised he hadn’t tried to steal it.

A voice spoke from her elbow, making her jump. "Have you known Master Cabal long?"

“Miss Uncumber. Hello. How lovely to hear from you."

“Miss Barrow?"

“I first met him about three and a half years ago. But I'm not sure how well I know him."

"Philosophy?” Edith’s tone indicated her opinion of philosophy.

"A fact, ma’am.’ Leonie crammed a bundle into the Glastone bag. "Cabal is difficult to know."

"To the best of your knowledge, then, is he a man of good character?"

Leonie evaded the question. "Why do you need to know?"

"He has made a request of me. Something I would not grant to someone unless I could be sure how he would use it."

Leonie struggled to answer fairly. "He isn't malicious or greedy. He will use it, ma'am, as he uses everything and everyone; in pursuit of his ambition.”

"I see. That is not a rousing endorsement. And yet you travel with him?"

“For now….” She trailed off. It sounded weak.

"So you will not commit yourself either way? It seems to me that shows a lack of faith in your own judgement, Miss Barrow."

Edith was right. This was it. This was the moment she would stop hedging. She would do her best to dissuade her from giving Cabal the book. Instead, this came out; “I can't advise you. You’ll have to decide for yourself."

Again, she could feel Edith depart. She was too right, Leonie thought, gouging more blood out from under her nails. Her judgement went all squiggly when Cabal was involved.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> With many and heartfelt thanks for your comments, kudos, and patience.


	10. In which the magus smiles

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “She knew their names. She knew about us. It could be true.” She was asking for a denial.
> 
> None came. “Then go home. Miss Uncumber could probably show you another way out."

chill  
adj. _discouraging_  


It had been easy. Leonie knelt behind the chair where the body lay sprawled. She’d ground dirt into the knees of her trousers. Blood welled from a scratch on her arm.

He stood stiffly over her and the quiet corpse. He dropped the miniature onto the grass. The ritual was over; Anna Lee was dead. A few drops of blood ran down his side with a tickle.

Leonie tried to speak, croaked, cleared her throat, and tried again. “Was she telling the truth?"

“No.' And then, "I don’t know."

“She knew their names. She knew about us. It could be true.” She was asking for a denial.

None came. “Then go home. Miss Uncumber could probably show you another way out."

She didn’t answer. She kept staring at the body, as if it might have more unwelcome knowledge to share.

It had a hateful logic. Of course he had killed them immediately. Why do anything else? Cabal was sure Twiccian had found a way to destroy a vampire before bringing one near him. Keep Frank Barrow? What for? Unbidden, an image came to him of Barrow raised from the dead like Anna Lee: the shrivelled face, the active eyes. It was distasteful.

Leonie rose to her feet. She had put on her brave face. “She was lying, of course. Twiccian's playing some sort of game. There’s no more reason to despair now than before: less, even. If he doesn’t want us somewhere, I’m more anxious to go.” She brushed her cheeks casually, sweeping away a few tears.

They weren’t sure. They would talk as if Horst and Frank were still alive. But a shard of doubt had lodged within them, under Anna Lee’s contemptuous gaze; they no longer entirely believed it.

***

_Earlier_

They had found her sitting in the garden that surrounded her own tomb. It was a pretty place, set into the embrace of the forest edge; rowans and oaks stood in a sheltering half-circle around flowering trees, lilies, and berries that invited the birds.

There was a wooden deck chair at the edge of the garden; a good place for an old woman to sit in the sun and overlook the tomb and the flowers. Anna Lee sat in it now. She wore a pale muslin dress with a lace fichu and fine slippers: her grave clothes. Her features were barely recognizable from the portrait at the house. Her skin was wrinkled like a desiccated apple’s, and it was discoloured and blotchy. But her hair was thick and black, done up behind her head in pins and braids.

She played with an asiatic lily she had apparently just ripped up by its roots. Dirt spilled over her muslin skirts as she plucked its leaves and flicked them onto the grass.

She turned towards them. “Oh. It’s you. Good morning. Is Edith with you? She used to talk to me, but she won't answer me these days." There was a hint of a foreign accent Leonie couldn’t quite place. Her palms sweated.

Cabal hesitated. He had not been prepared for conversation. “No. At least, I don’t think so.”

“Pity. Mr. Twiccian has some things to tell her, too.” Her smile showed a patchwork of decayed, ruined teeth.

Leonie walked into the garden, trying to look casual. “You have some things to tell us?” Her job was to restrain Anna long enough for Cabal to perform the ritual. It was risky; none of them knew how strong she was. Cabal had his gun in his pocket. He wouldn’t hesitate to shoot Anna if she harmed Leonie: but that was a better plan for revenge than dissuasion.

His other pocket held the materials for the ritual; there would be no circle this time, just a memorised incantation and a few significant items.

The figure in the chair motioned them closer impatiently. “Lud, don’t hang about at the other end of the world like that. Let’s have a proper chat. I dare say you won’t try to club me over the head until you’ve heard what I have to tell you. He would have told you yesterday, but the skeletons can't talk, poor things. Where are they?"

They went closer, keeping the mass of the marble sarcophagus between themselves and her as long as they could. “Edith said she’d distract them. We’ve seen her do it before.” Cabal belatedly realised that raising the subject of the distraction of enemies might be unwise. He changed the subject. “What does Arthur Twiccian have to say to Edith?"

She had stripped the lily of its leaves; she moved on to its petals. “That for helping you, he will destroy this place. Destroy its buildings, its trees, its water, its very earth. He will unravel its magic until it tears apart. He hopes she likes the infinite void.”

“I’ll be sure to pass that along.”

Leonie added, wary: “And what does he have to say to us?"

Anna threw the lily stem at her, an easy, contemptuous motion. “Go home. He's changed his mind. And there's no reason for you to bother now, anyway."

Once in a long while, Cabal and Leonie thought exactly the same thing at the same time. They didn’t understand her. They wouldn't understand her.

She laughed. "My, you have set your bristles up. Let me be clear. Frank Barrow will be dead before you can get there. He screams to heaven even now. Even if you could be by his side this moment, it would be too late.”

“And my brother?” Cabal sounded quite unconcerned. Leonie had a moment of odd pride in his icy sangfroid; she didn’t trust her voice just now, and she would not give the thing in the chair the satisfaction.

"Horst.' She laughed a little, cold laugh. “Horst is already dead. Mr. Twiccian has uses for the unmarked body of a vampire."

“One wonders why you would tell such a transparent lie.” Cabal’s voice was cool, but Leonie heard something in it. He was frightened, too: and now she was terrified.

Anna shrugged. “Twiccian doesn't want you anymore. His plan has changed, and he doesn't want you arriving uninvited, so he's killed your friends quite dead. Go home. And maybe he won't bother with you until this is done.” She looked from one to the other and burbled another laugh. “I can see you don’t believe me. Lud, this is funny. You don’t believe it. But it's already over."

Leonie cut around behind her, fast as a flick knife. She entwined her fingers in Anna’s coiffure and yanked her head over the back of the chair. Anna reached back to free herself, and Leonie changed her grip, pulling the revenant's arms above her head. Cabal moved in from the side, already pulling the items from his pocket. The three things she had touched in her final hours of life and which hadn't touched her body since: a paintbrush, a handkerchief, and an unfinished miniature portrait of a grey-haired woman.

Cabal put the Webley to Anna’s temple. "We are about to do this the easy way. Change your mind at any time." His next words were in Latin. Anna stopped struggling; Leonie became aware of the feeling of the dead flesh under Anna's blotched-crepe skin. She looked up into Leonie's eyes. Her face creased further in a smile, and holding her gaze she mouthed "...hescreams hescreams hescreams hescreams..." soundlessly until Cabal's recitation ended and she slumped quiet. Leonie dropped Anna’s wrists immediately, and knelt to rub her hands clean on the grass.

Cabal closed the dead woman's eyelids and rested her hands in her lap. The woods were full of birds. He carefully unwound Anna’s fichu from her shoulders and draped her awful face. He was still holding the miniature of Edith, he realised; he dropped it into the grass.

***

_Later_  
"There’s no more reason to despair now than before: less, even. If he doesn’t want us somewhere, I’m even more anxious to go.” She brushed the tears from her cheeks. She was going to have to toughen up some day, she thought. Cabal didn’t cry; why couldn’t she stop?

Another thought: if Twiccian was capable of raising Anna Lee as a horror and using her to torture Edith, then maybe Cabal’s assessment of his character had been optimistic. Anna’s lies - lies, no doubt - became easier to imagine. She felt queasy.

This time Cabal didn’t have any reassurance to give. He looked terrible. His face was bone-pale, and his brow had a sheen of perspiration. The hint of arrogance in his posture was gone. He walked carefully and avoided bending at the waist. He had turned down her offer to change the bandage this morning. She wondered if he’d slept at all. Worse yet, his expression was tight and cold. He was worried about Horst.

Wings rustled, and a shade stood at the edge of the garden. Miss Edith Uncumber was translucent, a blurry little person composed of colour and light. She was older than she had been in the pictures, by twenty years or more - elderly, but straight-backed.

She walked into the garden, leaning on a stick that didn’t mark the soft turf. She did not greet them. She stopped by the tomb, her back to the chair containing Anna's desecrated corpse. The tomb was a waist-high construction of grey marble, lightly weathered by the rains. Leonie had glanced at the inscription as they approached, but she hadn’t taken it in.

__

Anna Ping Ya Lee  
 _I_ was a child and _she_ was a child  
In this kingdom by the sea….' “

Edith did nothing visible, but with a series of cracks and creaks, the wood of the chair rearranged itself into a platform under the body. It rested on the turf for a moment before the ground opened, and it and the body sank down. The grass joined without seam. She put a ghostly hand on the tomb before her, and a moment later they heard a heavy slab moving into place, far beneath.

“Oh, my dear,” Edith murmured. “ Forgive me. It is all over now." After a moment, she raised her voice. “She wasn’t like that, you know. Not at all. She was a very sweet and talented young woman.”

There was an awkward pause, which Cabal filled in his characteristic fashion.

"No doubt, Madam.” His tone was scathing. He was leaning against an edge of the tomb, rigid with anger and fear, a healthy proportion of the former directed at the wisp of humanity before him.

Leonie winced, but Miss Uncumber continued, undiscouraged. "I had not expected to lose her so young.’ She seemed about to say more, but shook her head and changed the subject.

"I apologise for keeping you on your way, though I cannot be sorry about the outcome. Anna would tell you that I can be single-minded, particularly when my will is crossed. Restoring her to her grave was very, very important to me.'

She turned back to face them. "I hope your families are, in fact, well. I would not believe a single word that chit of a revenant said. No doubt all of it was from magus Twiccian and is meant to cause you pain or confuse you. So I learned when I, foolishly, tried to speak with it years ago."

Cabal’s voice was clear and cold. "Miss Uncumber, you have detained us long enough. All we want from you is the location of the exit. A lecture is not required." Leonie glanced at the Gladstone. Did it contain the book?

"I beg to differ, young man. My only regret is that neither of us has the leisure for the lengthy series of lectures you obviously require. And I am surprised you have not asked for the book."

Cabal shot a glance at Leonie, who didn't bother to look confused. Cabal answered stiffly. "I am forced to choose between pursuing it and preserving some hope of finding my brother. I will return at a later date, and...."

Edith scoffed. "There will be no later date. Even now, the other side of this world is sublimating into the void. Twiccian was not bluffing; everything here, and I expect I as well, will perish within the next several minutes."

"Miss Uncumber!” What could they do to help, Leonie wondered? Even if they could, would they spare the time? Her voice petered out.

“You are kind to worry, Miss Barrow. But I thought this might happen. It is acceptable to me. If you will permit the confidence, I have been wondering if eternity without Anna suits me as well as I had thought it might.’ Her tone forbade sympathy. “Even before Twiccian’s invasion, the peace and quiet was becoming dull."

"But the book, young man. It and a handful of objects will survive the destruction, unprotected by my wards, when the land and the house are gone, and Twiccian will search for them at his leisure. They might tumble harmlessly through the void, but... I think I will give it to you."

Cabal did not gasp, exactly, but Leonie heard him make a small, stifled noise - like the time she had booted him in the abdomen while he was following her through a window in the British Museum.

"After all, I will not be there to see the results.' And her small wrinkled face was overspread with an unbenign smile. Leonie thought it was the smile of a sorcerer facing her death. It faded. "Do not forget what you saw here. Ever. Do not let Twiccian have it; destroy it if you must. Use the book as well as you can."

Cabal at a loss for words. "This... This does not mean I will kill Twiccian for you."

There was an airy sigh, and Edith's shade faded away. "Say 'thank you.' "

He swallowed. "Thank you." And the book was on the tomb. It was within his reach. His hand hovered over it for a moment, and he touched it, and it was real. He picked it up, opened it and - with a visible effort of will - closed it and placed it in the inmost pocket of his coat. Leonie felt a mixed pang of emotion. She could tell: this one must be really important. She was happy for him. She was worried.

"Good boy.’ Edith’s unbodied voice rang crisply through the garden. "Now see if you can't kill him, after all."

Cabal didn’t seem to hear, so Leonie asked, “should we worry about the skeletons?"

"I took some satisfaction in allowing the terrain under them to disperse as soon as possible. I hope they found it confusing; they will have eternity to consider it. I can hold this region stable until you have left, if you don’t dawdle. But Mister Cabal.”

“Yes?” Cabal came out of his reverie. He straightened, and she saw his eyebrows twitch together as it hurt his side.

“Listen to this. It will have to do, in lieu of that series of lectures you need so badly. Kiss Miss Barrow. Save your brother and her father. Settle down. Have children, if you like. Do not be one of the magi who distain the common bonds of friendship and family. I was at the very summit of my art - but Anna mattered more. And if I had any family I gave a curse about, I might feel the same about them."

Cabal was so torn between confusion and offence he could not decide where to begin. Leonie watched him struggle for a moment. “Cabal.’ He glanced at her, full of dread. "Don't kiss me."

This broke Cabal's internal deadlock; he rounded on her, hissing, "I wasn't going to...."

"I know. Miss Uncumber, you have mistaken the nature of our relationship."

“Indeed.’ Cabal had found his voice. "Your situation and mine are hardly comparable, Fraulein.”

“Are they not? Never mind. I didn’t think you’d listen, but I have cleared my conscience."

"The portal, Ma’am? If you are suddenly in favour of our having families?” Edith's voice had quickly become diffuse, windy.

“Cheek, Miss Barrow. Follow the birds."

And the birds rose from the trees. The swallows and finches darted straight as arrows from a bow, scribing a line through the air to a point a short distance away in the field. The larger birds followed more slowly, looping and wheeling around Leonie and Cabal as they hastened towards the place where each bird in turn winked out of existence. A cormorant came last, wings pushing heavily against the air, flattening the grass with its weight.

Leonie looked behind. Was it the haze of the morning, or was the horizon blurring apart, sky and land meeting and diffusing together? Was there, as Anna had threatened, an endless darkness that roared up behind it, tearing everything apart? She had to turn back to watch where the birds were vanishing. A macaw, a pelican, an eagle was swallowed up by the air, and Leonie and Cabal pitched themselves through, Leonie taking a hard hold on his coat as they left the ground of Miss Edith Uncumber’s and Miss Anna Lee's home for the last time.

_But our love it was stronger by far than the love_  
Of those who were older than we—  
Of many far wiser than we—  
And neither the angels in Heaven above  
Nor the demons down under the sea  
Can ever dissever my soul from the soul  
Of the beautiful Annabel Lee; 

_For the moon never beams, without bringing me dreams_  
Of the beautiful Annabel Lee;  
And the stars never rise, but I feel the bright eyes  
Of the beautiful Annabel Lee;  
And so, all the night-tide, I lie down by the side  
Of my darling—my darling—my life and my bride,  
In her sepulchre there by the sea—  
In her tomb by the sounding sea. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ...and there ends act 2 of 3. My preparatory review of act 3 has gone well, expect another chapter in a week - or so.


	11. In which souls are bared

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “I keep trying to explain that I am not a monster. Not even the minor monster I once was.”
> 
> Leonie would have liked to deny it. But with her eyes on the pressure bandage she was adjusting, she said, "look. I don’t think you really understand. I do miss you."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> My apologies for the long wait! In addition to delays caused by the usual blocks and false starts, my computer desk has been infernally hot this month, so I've been pecking along on my tablet. Also, I really am trying to get this one right.
> 
> This one is for my commenters: a thousand thanks for the kind words that help me forge ahead!

chill  
adj. _hateful_  


Their feet hit a floor in a dark, stuffy space.   _Oh, God_ , thought Leonie.   _We haven't got a plan._

This wasn't entirely true, but it was close enough.  In the darkness (of a place she was actually _hoping_ was Arthur Twiccian's lair) their argument about whether they should try to abduct Twiccian or content themselves with rescuing their hostages seemed outrageously optimistic.  Find dad and Horst?  She could barely see.  

Well, she thought: one thing at a time. She made herself drop Cabal’s coattail before he noticed she was still holding it like a mother’s apron strings. She found the torch in her bag and tried the switch; it was, miraculously, still working.  The room lit up more than she had expected; the walls and ceiling were pale and flat and reflected the weak glow.  The wall had something small on it at chest height; she went over to investigate.

Cabal’s voice came from behind her: “bring the light over here.  I need to…” he broke off as white, antiseptic light stuttered then stabilised.  

“There's a light switch." 

Now they could see a flat, tiled floor, about thirty feet square. The corners of the room were dusty. The air had the sour tang of fresh plaster, and the wall by the switch hadn’t been sanded flat; you could see the marks of the trowel.  They were inside a broad circle inscribed into the floor. There was only one piece of furniture, standing outside the circle; a wooden lectern, its age and beauty incongruous in the shabby surroundings.  An empty doorway led to a narrow hall. 

Leonie caught her first clear look at Cabal in the light. “Oh, God, Cabal. Your side.” His trouser leg was sodden and sticky down the thigh. She sat down on the tile by his feet and pulled him down next to her by his coattails. 

His knees agreed with her; he caught their treacherous sag, but he sat down anyway. “We should move. This is a summoning circle. Twiccian may know we’re here.”

Leonie already had out the bandages they’d brought from Edith’s home. He didn’t feel very well. He unbuttoned his vest. 

She splashed the worst of the dirt off her hands, leaving muddy drips on the tile floor. He handed her a pair of surgical gloves. “Are we sure Twiccian can see what’s happening in Miss Uncumber's realm when his creatures aren’t there?" 

He thought for a moment. She peeled his sticky, soaking shirt from his side.  "No. We aren't. And if this place is his, his own protections against scrying will protect us. Ironically, we may finally be safe from magical surveillance.”   

“Then he isn't certain where we are and if we made it out.  And if we run out there and start bludgeoning his servants to death, he’ll know for sure. With any luck, he’s still busy disassembling Miss Uncumber.” There was a guilty fold to her brow at the mention of Edith, manipulative old cuss that she had been. “Do you think she's dead?" 

"Yes." 

“Oh. I'm sorry about that.”

She bandaged in silence for a minute, and his hand had dropped to the small, thick shape of the book in his coat. 

She saw the movement. "That book, Cabal.  Why is it so important?" 

He shook his head. “We have more pressing….'  Leonie arched an eyebrow.  

A memory. Leonie saying, _”we always have 'more pressing concerns' when you're avoiding a subject.  I should make you a sign to wear around your neck.  ‘Shut up, I have pressing concerns.’”_  He shut his teeth on the words.  “My dealings with Miss Uncumber are private.  If I want Commandant Singh to know about them, I’ll write her a letter." 

He wanted to tell someone, though. 

The central problems of necromancy are three.  Healing the body, recalling the soul, and making it all stick.  

Separately, these are entirely achievable.  Cabal’s test batches had created zombies with minor variations; they were all stupid, putrid, walking echoes of people. Over the short term, better results were possible. Leonie had seen him briefly restore the Senzan agent to life after his murder. As per Cabal’s experience, Cacon had been quite normal, if unhappy with the situation. Restoring proper brain function and igniting the electric and chemical processes of life were technical problems, provided the grosser capabilities of the body were intact, and he’d had some successes along these lines. It was uniting these aspects that was the problem.  

Cabal had hypothesized that the human soul was bound up with the answer. The soul could be recalled to the body in the hours after death, but only fleetingly; durable undead were entirely soulless. 

For her part, Leonie feared Cabal’s work with souls. It was an uneducated, even superstitious opinion, he thought: but that he labelled Leonie’s opposition ‘uneducated’ rather than ‘ignorant’ or ‘moronic’ demonstrated how far Cabal was willing to excuse her. There were issues from a practical perspective, of course. The human soul contained potential energy, which, if mishandled, might pose a danger to its surroundings. Then, of course, there was the danger - which he scarcely allowed himself to imagine - of calling a soul back into an imperfectly raised body. The smallest uncertainty there was unacceptable. Yes, it would have to be done carefully, even tested somehow. He did not let himself consider the particulars of the testing process with any clarity. 

Leonie shrugged as if she didn’t care. “Fine. Be careful with your bullets, by the way.  We're both running short. Breathe out.” He exhaled, and she clapped the new pad firmly onto the raw surface of the wound. He was too busy gasping with the sudden sear of pain to make much of a noise. When he recovered his breath, he asked, “your arm is bleeding, too. Why don’t you bandage that up, if you’re playing nurse?”

“It’s just a scratch.  Do you really think Miss Uncumber would have permitted tetanus in her home? Not even if it wiped its feet on the mat first.” 

“Clean it up, or you’ll be bleeding all over both of us. Look, you just smudged my shirt.” 

“Your shirt looks like a dishrag in an abattoir. Forget my arm. And forget the bloody Dee Society for five minutes. What is that book?”

Cabal wanted to tell her. He wanted to tell someone who would understand; this book was hope, hope that had been elusive for a year or more. 

He looked at Leonie; he could see no sign of the Dee Society officer in her face. But this would have been a sensitive subject even before their falling-out. “It is a book of magic that pertains to souls.” 

She was startled out of her bandaging. “Souls! Cabal, you mustn't. This is exactly the sort of thing-”

“-I will be careful.”

“Careful?’ She laughed briefly. “Because you're always so careful. Careful like when?”

“I keep trying to explain that I am not a monster. Not even the minor monster I once was.”

Leonie would have liked to deny it. But with her eyes on the pressure bandage she was adjusting, she said, "look. I don’t think you really understand. I do miss you."

She glanced up. Cabal was looking down at her, profoundly confused. The pain from her brisk bandaging made it difficult to focus, but he could swear she had just said she missed him. Missed him.

There was the ghost of a rueful smile at his perplexity. “I do. I miss being horribly trounced at chess and your damned inconvenient unannounced visits. I miss your cautionary tale of a house. And I’ve never stopped worrying about you."

Leonie looked back to her work and sighed. "Somehow, you became my best friend. I don't know why. After all, it isn't like there weren’t more promising candidates.  But now and then you forget to be an utter bastard, and it is endearing out of all proportion. And though you’d deny it, you've been kind to me.’ 

Cabal was too busy assimilating this remarkable speech to think of denying anything. But he dimly felt a coordinating conjunction approaching and readied himself to jump on it as it passed.

"…But…”

He broke in. " 'But' nothing. If that is true, what is stopping us from picking up where we left off?”

“Damn it, Johannes! I miss you.' She swallowed. "But I don't miss trying to trust you while knowing that I shouldn't. I don't miss learning about the things you've done and wondering why I'm playing chess with you instead of pitching you in jail.’

"I truly am fond of you, Cabal. But it has to end, for more reasons than one." 

She knotted the end of the bandage and gave it a firm tug. It held. “There. Tell me if it starts dripping again.” She waited for the argument. 

He spoke: just six words. “I have missed you, as well." 

And she wasn't able to stay, just couldn't, and her eyes prickled again as she stepped into the hallway alone. 

 

***

The corridor was lined by unmarked, flat doors with cheap fittings. Cabal opened one, gun ready, Leonie behind him. It opened on a small, dusty room, stuffy with the smells of construction. They tried the next. It was the same. They tried more rooms, all empty. Leonie shook her head impatiently, strode to the end of the hallway, and turned left. It was another double row of doors.

"We'll never find them in all this," she said.

"Not all of them will be empty, either. Surely Twiccian will have trapped a few; remember his previous lair?"

"Is this even his lair? It seems totally uninhabited. It's just been built, and not very well, either."

"Regardless, we need a way to narrow this search down…. Hmm…. Are you carrying anything of your father's?”

She was reluctant to answer. “Is it important?”

He didn't answer, but his ironical eye was enough to send her hunting through the string bag. She diffidently offered a small battered object.

"His pipe? Well, yes, that will do nice…." Cabal's voice trailed off. A glare sparked in his eyes. "Is this why you didn't let your bag go, back in that river?' His voice rose in volume and pitch. "Was I shot for your father's favourite pipe?"

"You got yourself shot, Cabal. I was going to lead the skeletons downriver, letting you escape to the house. Don't blame me for your poor tactical choices."

Cabal hadn't paid the least bit of attention, too caught up in his outrage. "Did you picture him lighting up a quiet bowlful in the middle of Twiccian's dungeon?"

"Well, maybe not in the dungeon, but…"

"Did you even bring,' Cabal was close to shouting, "any tobacco?"

Leonie's mouth was already open for a hot rejoinder when she realised that, in fact, she had not. She searched for something to say. "I was distraught!"

"You were out of your mind. Do you have any idea how much this wound hurts?"

"Can you use the pipe or are you just going to complain about it?"

"I can use it. Maybe. Twiccian's spells keep almost any kind of scrying or divination from functioning, but it's very difficult to block a basic, unsubtle bond like sympathetic magic. Give it here."

Cabal took it and tied the bit of the pipe to a length of string he cut from a ball in the Gladstone bag. He set it swinging, bowl down, in a slow circle. The circle shrunk, but nothing more spectacular happened. He frowned, wound the string over his hand, and slipped the pipe out of the knot. "Cut some of your hair."

"Really?"

He was already advancing on her with the flick knife. "Just enough to swing this by. A dozen hairs? Where is it longest?" 

"Not in front! You just want us to match. Take it from the crown. Oooh, you bastard, that's more than a dozen hairs."

Cabal stripped off his gloves and plaited the narrow lock into a short string. He gave it a critical look. "I thought this would be longer."

"Well, it's not all that long, really. It's just… fluffy." She patted her deep gold hair into place.

“Never mind. It's long enough.” He secured it to the end of the pipe, set it circling again, and was rewarded with an immediate ellipsis that turned into a brisk back and forth rocking.

“Cabal. Couldn't we do this for Horst, too?”

He shook his head. “I scarcely think we could duplicate this effect with my hair.”

“Well, it's not as short as all that, on top. I could try matting it. What's left, at least. But we don't have something to use as a pendulum.”

“Moreover, his vampirism probably broke the blood bond that is aiding us here.”

“Oh.” That seemed sad, somehow.

The pendulum was directional only, and wasn’t very exact; it ruled some rooms out, but they still had to open doors. Most were empty. Until they came to a hallway that was not. 

The first room was a shock, to Leonie at least; the second was disturbing; the third, fourth, and fifth grew terrifying. Each one was lined and filled with cheap metal shelving, except for narrow walkways between. Each shelf held a human skeleton. 

“How many of these does he have?”

“Enough for a small army. The empty rooms could be for more skeletons, or the fresher revenants we saw at the Dee Society.” How had Twiccian got his hands on this many bodies? It wasn’t easy, as he knew too well. This must have taken years, or, Cabal realized, perhaps Twiccian had simply been more ruthless in his acquisition practices. It didn’t take much effort to amass bodies in a war zone; transportation was the only issue. 

There was a pause while Leonie mentally filled the empty rooms. “What does he want?”

“To annihilate everything that isn’t under his absolute control.”

“That's melodramatic, isn't it?”

“No, that's what was written in his strategic plan. And doodled in the margins of his notebooks.”

They had known he was insane. They had known he was ruthless. It was something else altogether to see these small, stuffy rooms ready to hold a host of the undead. They followed the pendulum, sometimes half-running down halls, sometimes laboriously opening a wall of doors. Some rooms were empty; some were shelved; many were full of bones. 

“Cabal, here.” They had been alternating doors now, to pick up speed. 

“Is it him?”

“No. Well, maybe. It’s locked. And there’s something odd about the door frame.”

But for all their investigation, they could not determine exactly what the trap must be. Finally, with every precaution they could muster, they kicked it in. Nothing happened. Very carefully, they entered.

The room had no shelves: just a series of black lacquered frames, like picture frames, that hinged edgewise to the wall. They fanned out gently, like pages in a book. The frames had small, repetitive decorations… no, they were runes scribed along the edges in gold. 

The frames were numerous and closely set, so Leonie couldn’t see what they enclosed. “Do you think they’re all right to touch?”

Cabal answered by gently pushing one aside with a finger. 

Leonie had no experience with the thing he exposed. It was like walking in on her grandfather naked. It was like reading her mother’s diary. It was like finding a dead body in the river. A smudged white thing was loosely sandwiched between two panes of glass, moving listlessly like river weed in a current. “Cabal, what is that thing?”

“It is a soul, Miss Barrow.’ He flicked through a few more, as if he was browsing in a poster shop. “They are all souls.”

***

They regrouped in the next room. It was, mercifully, bare. Leonie had her water canteen; she swigged from it. She wished it was brandy. “That,’ she said, “was obscene.”

Cabal grimaced in agreement. He had bought and sold souls, but besides his own, he had never seen one. It seemed people weren’t meant to look at strangers’ souls. Leonie had left the room almost immediately; Cabal had forced himself to stay and leaf through the frames. Some of the souls were more stained than his had been, some less. 

“How did Twiccian get them?” She was chalk-pale, but she was already thinking it through. “Is there a black market trade?”

“Not that I’ve ever heard. I didn't know ownership was… transferable? But if anyone could find such a thing….’ Cabal raised a hand and let it drop. “Maybe he has found a way to extract them directly.”

Leonie paled further. “What happens if we break the frames?”

“The souls will be freed,’ he said slowly. “The enchantment is on the frames.”

“Free to go where?”

“They have no volition. Wherever they are supposed to be.”

“Heaven or Hell?”

He shrugged. “I would guess Hell. Those are no angels, and I don’t know that there are any alternatives. If there, I'd certainly welcome a few options.”

“But we can’t let Twiccian keep them.” 

Cabal cleared his throat. “The instant we break one of those frames, he will know where we are. They are magically alarmed. He’ll throw everything he has at us.”

“Oh, god.’ She hung her head. “And it’ll be almost impossible to find dad and Horst while we’re being chewed to pieces by the Arthur Twiccian welcome wagon. I see.”

“We can find Horst and your father first and come back for the souls.”

“And how would you rate our chances of doing that?” 

Cabal didn’t answer.

“Yes. I agree. We both know that getting out of here with the four of us alive was never very likely. If we're going to do this, we'd better do it now.”

“You are proposing we throw away not only our lives, but Horst's and your father's as well?”

“It's not that I want to! But this is important, Cabal. There must be thirty souls in there. That doesn’t scare me half as much as where he got them and how he might get more.’ She put her flask down on the floor and leaned towards Cabal, who stood, arms crossed. “What could Arthur Twiccian do with souls?”

“Unpleasant things. You’re forgetting something. The book.”

“The…?” 

“Miss Uncumber warned me that Twiccian could use the knowledge in this book to create terrible servants. He has bodies. He has souls. If we die here, he will have this book, too.”

“It's that powerful?”

“Potentially.”

“Then we definitely free the souls.’ A mulish look was rising in Leonie’s face. “And in case he can find more, we’ll have to destroy the book, too.”

“Never.’ It snapped out without thought. “It is unique. This may be the key, Leonie. What I’ve been looking for. This may solve the most serious problems.”

“Or it may destroy the country. Or the world. Cabal, I know this is hard for you, but you have to look at the bigger picture! We’re probably going to die either way, but no-one is safe with that book in Twiccian’s hands.”

“Oh. You know? How reassuring. You don't know. I will not destroy the book.”

She knew better than to oppose him head-on when he got that flinty look. “So what’s your bright idea?”

“Don't get caught. Come back later to free the souls.”

“I don’t believe you can. If the Dee Society could put you in a box, I would lay any odds you like that a forewarned and forearmed Arthur Twiccian could turn you into ratatouille by nightfall. Twiccian will be redecorating Buckingham Palace by Easter.” The air was still and stuffy. At last, Cabal opened his mouth.

“Ratatouille is a vegetable dish.”

“Cabal!” She was close to real anger.

He also sighed angrily. “Twiccian doesn’t know I have it. What if we hide it?”

Leonie’s brows lowered. “Fine. Let’s say you could hide it. Would you agree to free the souls then?’ The silence extended. Cabal frowned down from his height. He bit his lip, a wildly demonstrative gesture. She knew doing this would likely doom them: an expensive price for interfering with Twiccian’s plans, not ending them. And yet, Leonie knew that it had to be done. Leaving souls - no matter how dingy - in the power of Arthur Twiccian would be wrong.

“Cabal, we have to stop him. This is more important than you or than me, or even than Horst and dad. I couldn’t look him in the eye if I left them there and got him out.”

Cabal was still silent, as if in an internal struggle. 

“Please, Johannes. This is about the decisions we make. It’s about choosing what kind of people we are. Think about what Horst would want, or,’ she added hastily, not sure of the effect of older-brother wisdom on the testy necromancer, “think who she would want you to be. And, if it means anything, think about who I hoped you were.” This last was quiet, offered in the hope it wouldn’t utterly decide him against it.

Cabal snorted faintly. “You still don’t understand. Perhaps you don’t want to.’ Her heart sank. “It’s not that I have refused to change my ways. Or, yes, I refused - but it didn’t do me any damned good.”

She was bewildered. “I don’t understand, Cabal.”

“I am afflicted.’ He articulated the words with ironic precision. “A degenerative disease: conscience. There’s no cure. I diagnosed myself a year or so ago. The result of toxic exposure to one’s own soul, at least in my case.’ 

He let out a frightening half-laugh. “And it has been driving me mad. I will not play at necromancy while time passes and she lies there and,” he stopped.  "But I can't go on as I used to. I cannot commit the acts I once did as a matter of course.’

“I would not change for my parents, or for Horst, or for... ' he looked away.   "But yes, I have changed.  I had no choice. I needed a soul to do my work.  And once obtained, my soul made my methods disgusting to me. It's like a sick joke.’ 

He was pacing now. “I would do anything to make her live again. Now more than ever.’ The fanaticism of his voice chilled her. “But I am caged in by its demands. I don’t care to die for a roomful of shoddy strangers’ spirits. But one can’t live at odds with one’s own soul.  I have tried and failed.  It doesn’t work.’

“So yes, we will free the souls. And yes, I would have freed them without you here. And if my reasons aren't ideologically pure enough for you, I don't care. And if they are, you can stuff your smug congratulations up your arse.’

“I’m going to hide the book. Stay here.” Cabal stood and stalked from the room, leaving Leonie speechless.

 

 

 _But at my back I always hear_  
_Time’s wingèd chariot hurrying near;_  
_And yonder all before us lie_  
_Deserts of vast eternity._  
_Thy beauty shall no more be found;_  
_Nor, in thy marble vault, shall sound_  
_My echoing song;_  
-Andrew Marvell


	12. In which a secret is told

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “Once we break something, we won’t have time to talk. I want to know something before we go on.”
> 
> He didn’t move. “Is it about the souls?”
> 
> She was surprised. “No.”
> 
> “Is it about finding the hostages?”
> 
> “No.” Her mouth twisted.

Be slow to fall into friendship; but when thou art in, continue firm & constant.  
– Socrates

Leonie sat on the floor of the empty room, waiting for Cabal’s return. So, he had a conscience, did he? It was getting in the way of his work, was it? She sipped her water. Something wasn’t right. Something didn’t make sense. She had watched Cabal tell lies while in many frames of mind: false innocence; superciliousness; boredom; impatience. She had never seen him lie while truly angry, halfway desperate, really. A molecule of hope was shining somewhere inside her, and it could not be entirely quenched. But she knew what followed hope, every time.

It was hard to tell how much time was passing in the bare room. She checked her watch, but she couldn’t remember when he had left. When he returned at last, tight-lipped and grim, the conversation was on practical subjects.

Leonie found some unassembled shelving and liberated a couple of heavy metal struts. They used the pendulum. Unwillingly, they braced themselves and entered the room. Cabal had left one soul showing; it fluttered weakly between the imprisoning panes. Leonie ignored the swell of nausea that threatened to bring up her swallows of water.

Cabal wore his tinted glasses. He flourished his strut, as if he was testing its weight, and wound up to strike the exposed frame. The strut stuck in the air behind him; he looked back. Leonie was holding it, and she looked uneasy. He sighed irritably. “What is it now?”

“Once we break something, we won’t have time to talk. I want to know something before we go on.”

He didn’t move. “Is it about the souls?”

She was surprised. “No.”

“Is it about finding the hostages?”

“No.” Her mouth twisted. 

“Then it’s nothing we need to talk about.”

“Fine.’ She released the strut. “Go ahead.” She turned away from him abruptly and prodded the frames apart, exposing another soul. She broke the glass, sending splinters flying everywhere and wood crashing to the ground.

***

Later, she waited outside. Cabal finished the work in the soul room. She had been determined to stick it out as long as he did, but after she vomited in the corner, he waved her out, his lip curled in disgust. She accepted the dismissal.

She stood outside, listening. She heard him retching not long after, and she waited, but he didn't come out. The sounds of destruction resumed. When he emerged from the room, his face was white and his skin had a clammy sheen. One black kid glove showed a slice through to his skin. He removed his coat and shook the splinters off as well as he could; she turned her face away from the fine spray of glass. 

He put it back on. “What are you waiting for? Onwards.” And they ran.

***

Cabal ran as if Twiccian’s legions were coming up behind them. He could only assume they were. He thought about where he’d left the book; he caught himself hoping it was hidden well enough, that the protection he had rather cleverly exploited would suffice. Hope was beside the point.

Leonie was lagging. She was out of condition. So was he, but he knew how to run as if the devil was after him, even when there was nothing to be seen. By the pendulum readings they had taken at each end of the cross-hallway, Barrow was located approximately forty yards ahead and to the left. 

Cabal decided, grimly, that they had walked neatly into every one of Twiccian’s snares thus far; now it only remained to be seen from what direction his strike would come, and what kind of engraving would be on the hammer. 

Everything he valued was at risk; the chance to save any of it was vanishing with every minute. Cabal ran.

***

Thank the cruel and careless powers of the universe, there was a hallway where they needed one. There was even a door. 

They both thought it looked suspicious. The walls showed signs of patching, and there was a smell of solvent. After a nerve-wracking minute of searching during which they expected to be interrupted by swarms of rotting locals, they identified a trigger disguised as a splinter in the doorframe. Leonie slid a nail file under it to hold it steady, and Cabal gave the door a few scientific kicks. It was absurdly risky, but they were in a hurry. 

Cabal delivered the third kick; as he righted himself, he jostled Leonie, and the file slipped from under the splinter. It sprang shut with an audible click, fast as a snake striking. She flung herself back at the opposite wall. Cabal, still off-balance from the kick, settled for falling to the floor with an audible thump and a truncated cry of pain. 

Leonie didn’t have any attention to spare for him. The space on the other side of the door was more of a closet than a cell. There wasn’t even room for Barrow’s body to lie flat; his shoulders slumped against one wall, and his legs lay in an untidy tangle against the other. His face was grey under his grizzled moustache.

Leonie was on her knees next to him, a low keening sound dying in her throat. Her fingers went to his pulse even as her other arm strained to lift him out of his crumpled position. Her voice was brisk. “He’s warm. Cabal, would you confirm his pulse, please.” Despite the automatic politeness, it was an order. Cabal pulled himself upright, one hand pressed to his side; he put his fingers to Barrow’s wrist and nodded after a moment. There was a pulse, weak and slow. 

“Dad. Wake up, dad.” 

Cabal watched them, father and daughter. She would realise it any moment; her worry and relief were distracting her. 

Leonie moved her father's head on to her knees. Thank god, she thought, he was warm and breathing and his heart was beating. “Dad.’ She shook him gently. “Dad?’ Barrow lay limp. “He's not waking up.’ She thought. “How are we going to get him out of here if he can't walk?”

They couldn't, of course. He was too heavy to carry far, and they couldn't afford to be encumbered. “We should leave him and come back when we've found Horst,” Cabal said, not ungently.

She looked up at him. “I won't.”

He should require her to leave her father and assist him. They had agreed upon mutual assistance, after all. Instead, he gave a tight nod. “Stay out of sight, then. If I can, I will bring Horst back to carry him.”

She thought for a moment and nodded firmly. “Good luck, Cabal. I do hope you find Horst. Take care.” It sounded like a farewell. 

Leonie moved her father back into the miserable little closet and stepped in after him. She put her hand on the door to close it after herself. It occurred to Cabal that she would not wait. After a little while she would try some desperate plan of her own, alone and with a body to transport. He knew the difficulties of that from experience. Her plan’s failure would, he reflected, be a marvellous distraction for his attempts to find and free Horst, but the thought only flitted through his mind. “No,’ he said. “We should stay together.”

Her face didn’t change. “Ideally. But I don't think there's anything for you to do in this closet. Even if there was the space.’ A hint of asperity entered her voice. “You’re bleeding again, aren’t you?”

He was thinking madly. “Not much. And don’t be facetious. Ah. Yes. I have an idea.” He didn’t see Leonie’s shoulders relax, or notice the breath she took, deep and relieved and a little shaking. She took her hand away from the door.

“It will take…” he thought of the distance they had run. It would take too long. But what if…. He checked an adjacent room. “The very thing. Help me get him in here.”

They half-dragged Barrow by the wrists and ankles. It was another room of skeletons. Leonie looked confused. “Here, Cabal? I suppose we could try to hide him,” she added doubtfully. 

He didn't reply but threw himself to his knees beside one of the shelves. He was into the Gladstone bag in a moment. Every second was valuable. Leonie's mouth dropped open as he undid the snap that secured his small padded case and withdrew a test tube labelled in his precise hand. “A test batch? Here? Now? Don't you think we have enough things running about? Besides, I thought you hated skeletons.”

“They are markedly inferior even to humans,’ Cabal said severely, as if he was made of some rarer clay, “and their creation has nothing to add to my studies. But…’ he flicked the seal open with his thumbnail, “…they are the 'Twinkle Twinkle Little Star' of necromancy, and just now….’ He poured the liquid over the skull and spoke some low words, very fast. “…One might be very useful.” All the skeletons on the shelves shivered for a moment, and Cabal looked up sharply. But they lay quiet. 

Just then, they heard sounds coming down the hall. Both froze in panic for a second; they knew what it must be. Leonie remembered the light they had switched on upon entering the room; would it show under the ill-fitting door? Did she dare move to the switch and turn it off? Or, worse, were their pursuers using senses other than sight? 

Cabal hadn’t moved. She rose from her half-hunch; dignity was worth a little something, if one didn’t have time to hide. The steps were louder now; they reverberated against the walls. Leonie took her father’s lax, soft hand. Her fingers were cold. They were moving at a jog-trot, and there were many of them, enough that she couldn’t pick out individual strides. Half a dozen or more. 

The steps passed the door and went on. Leonie and Cabal dared to look at each other at last; the sounds were really moving away. They faded into silence. Leonie put an ear to the door to be sure no-one had stayed behind. She turned to Cabal and shrugged. He stood slowly, and his face was particularly impassive. She noticed he steadied himself on the shelves.

“Up,” he said, and the skeleton raised a bony arm and used the shelf to pull itself to its feet. Its skull turned from side to side, as if it was looking around the room. Leonie shuddered. She hated it when Cabal practiced his vocation in front of her.

“Carry.” Cabal pointed at her dad, and the monster clicked over the floor to him, squatted low, and raised him in its arms. Its skull tilted down, as if it was looking at its burden. Barrow’s sleeve poked between its bare radius and ulna. 

Leonie reached for some gallows humour to keep herself from being sick again. “Shall we call him Bob?”

Cabal gave her a cold look. “How dare you give him a jocular pet name; have you no respect for his dignity?’ Leonie was trying to frame an apology when he continued. “His name will be Wilhelm. Come.” And Cabal picked up his bag, walked out of the room, and set off at a trot. Leonie followed hastily as the skeleton sped up to trail its master like a dog coming to heel.

Pain fogged Cabal's brain. They were getting away from the soul room, from Barrow’s cell, from the room from which he had stolen a skeleton. He should be thinking ahead, figuring out how to find Horst, but every time he tried, he failed. His mind was only too happy to return to its new favourite subjects: “my, doesn't my side hurt,” “messy ends for Arthur Twiccian,” “items I should have brought,” and “estimating how much blood I have lost today.”

He didn't look at Leonie, running by his side. She had made her own decisions, and he had been eager to accept her help. But he wished, now, that she hadn't come. This bizarre quest was about to fail anyway, and if he had sent her away, she might not be running through a madman’s lair with an unconscious man, a wounded man, and a dead man. It sounded like an overcomplicated joke. It was obvious no rapprochement was possible. It humiliated him that he had even tried, and - only think it quietly - he thought it might be saddening him that it had failed. 

Her voice broke into his dismal thoughts. “So you've realised how fishy all this is.”

“Yes. Of course.’ Well. He did the moment she said it, which was almost the same thing. “It's unbelievable he hasn't caught us by now. And the last trap was only the most obvious. We tripped at least two others, and not one of the three functioned.”

He had slowed to speak, and Leonie got a better look at him. “Here, stop a moment. You're going to run into something. You're sort of a putty colour in the face. You can’t keep this up.”

“Of course I can,” he contradicted her automatically. But he did stop. Wilhelm stopped obediently when Cabal did. The skeleton turned his skull to watch each of them as they spoke. It was unnerving, but Cabal reminded himself that it was just a reaction to sensory input. The eye sockets swept back and forth like a spectator watching a tennis match. 

Leonie searched for a subject that would distract him for a moment and make him rest. “Cabal - I’ve been thinking about the book. If the Dee Society were to find out….”

“And how would that happen?’ He smiled like a wound; the effect was only a little ruined by his short, pained gasps of breath. “In any case, it could hardly make them angrier with me.”

“No, I think you're wrong. You moved yourself up their list, but so did Twiccian. If you start experimenting with souls, though….” 

“Then don't tell them.”

“I’m not going to tell them!”

“What kind of operative are you, then?” 

She marvelled at his bottomless capacity for rudeness. He looked like death warmed over, but somehow he found the energy to mock and belittle her. Fine. Fine. She’d had enough anyway. “Cabal, you simple soul. I’m no kind of operative at all. I didn't join the bloody Dee Society.” 

"You're... What?" 

"I didn't join. Anyone but you,’ she said, cuttingly, “would have seen it at once.”

“You didn’t join the Dee….” He realised he was repeating a fact already sufficiently established within the conversation. 

“And I doubt they’d have me for love or money now.’ She picked up the string bag and fidgeted with the handles.  “You just assumed it when I showed up with the file, and I was too angry to correct you.  I turned down their first offer, remember? My reasons didn’t change just because you became accessory to a massacre.  Did you think that just because you left me there, I was going to run to the next narcissist with a gun?" She mimed a burly self-important officer and ended with a scathing eye roll. 

“ _I_ left _you_?  And you have been letting me go on believing….”  He let the sentence trail off.  He had been using the Dee Society to goad her since she walked through his door.  He reviewed his various insults and digs, and found their wit diminished by the fact that she had never, in fact, been a member of the damned thing.  He felt scarcely less betrayed than when he'd thought she had joined them. 

“Come on, Cabal. They imprison people without trial. They have firing squads. Does that really seem like something I’d involve myself with.”

Of course, he almost said. Of course, because they share your simplistic, narrow-minded, grade-school sense of…. He faltered. He didn’t believe it, he realised. If he’d really thought it through, he would have known Leonie would not involve herself with the thugs of the Dee Society, no matter what the benefits to herself. “No. Not really.”

“You thought I'd go to the next source for my adrenaline fix.  Idiot.  Yes, I enjoyed our escapades, but running from ghouls isn't the only game in town. I could have taken up racecar driving or something.  Cabal, you hardly have the moral high ground here, so move on."   

Cabal swallowed a small chunk of his pride. It hurt more than the gash in his midsection. “Would you care to elaborate on how you got Twiccian’s file?”

Mollified, she did care to elaborate. “Singh gave me an open invitation to return and learn more about you. I cabled her right after dad was taken. Singh is still hoping - well, she was hoping at the time that I would change my mind.  I suppose she thought I might be ready to back them against you.  So they showed me the results of what we did,’ she said simply. Cabal remembered her story about hospital wards full of the wounded and broken. It was hard to tell around the agony in his side, but he suspected he felt shame.  

She continued. “I wondered at the time if she might have known what I had in mind and turned a blind eye.  I had a good chance to find and take Twiccian’s file while I was reading yours, and they didn’t find it on the way out.’ She shrugged. “Now, I think she just trusted me." 

“So, rather than being a rising star within the Society, you are actually a fugitive from them?” 

“Fugitive is putting it strongly. I’m not public enemy number one.”

Something occurred to him that distracted him from considering this welcome development. “Did you see my file?”

“Yes. And there are a few things…. Listen.” When Cabal would have asked another question, she held a hand out in a sudden, nervous gesture. There were footfalls coming. They ran again. Wilhelm brought up the rear, Frank Barrow in his tireless arms, his skull turning questioningly behind.


	13. In which there is even more blood.

“A doubtful friend is worse than a certain enemy. Let a man be one thing or the other, and we then know how to meet him.”   
-Aesop

The steps faded behind them, taking a different turning. They stopped gratefully, and Cabal bent over for a moment. He pretended to be fiddling with the handles of the Gladstone bag. Halls of closed doors had led to halls of empty cells had led to a dead end with a heavily barred metal door: the kind that might be able to hold a vampire. It was silent. If Horst was behind it, they were so close to being able to leave.

They removed the bars and opened the doors. 

The room held two cells, vastly more secure than the ones outside. The cages were made of of massive, close-set bars that might defeat even vampiric strength. The floors were lined with metal plates welded flat. The floor between was tiled, and there was a recessed panel in the room’s ceiling. All this sunk in later. At the time, the two vampire bodies on the blood-slicked tile demanded all their attention.

One body lay sprawled on its chest, and its bare feet stuck out of a dark robe. Its head lay some yards away, eyes closed but fangs still bared. The neck region was untidy; the head seemed to have been ripped off. The spray of blood was revolting. The footprints and handprints in it reminded Leonie of the massacre at the Dee Society, but the colour of the blood was subtly wrong: a little pale, like a dab of white had been added.

The other body was Horst’s, and they went to him. He lay face-up at the other end of the room, arms loosely by his sides. He wore a set of peach silk pyjamas that were red to the elbow in blood. His handsome face was clotted with pale gore, and his open lips exposed his fangs; Leonie had never seen his fangs before.   

“It is Horst, isn’t it?’ She could hardly recognize the gentle, urbane man she had met at the Dee Society in this nightmarish thing. “Is he alive? I mean - you know what I mean.”

“Yes. Yes, he is breathing.”

“He isn’t wounded?” Leonie plucked up her courage and knelt across from Cabal, helping him to check Horst for bites. His pyjamas were torn and marked with bloody handprints, but any injuries had healed. Horst, Cabal said, healed fast.

He sat back, dissatisfied. “It should be night, should it not? If the time zone is similar to England’s.” 

“Yes. If. Maybe he’s just asleep because it’s daytime.”

“But this is not how he sleeps during the day. His flesh is warm now, and he breathes.’ Leonie could have forgiven Cabal some small sign of stress as he knelt over his brother’s unconscious blood-soaked form, but he could have been at home in his laboratory for all the concern he showed. “The blood! The blood from the other vampire.  Where is it?" A hint of smugness settled on his face.

Leonie gestured helplessly all around them.  

"It isn't enough,’ he corrected her. “And see the smears around Horst's mouth.  The blood is pale.  He drank. It must be poisoning him.” 

He must be right, but she grudged acknowledging it. “All right. That seems as likely as anything. How can we help?" 

Smugness gone, Cabal eased gingerly out of his coat and started on his sleeve button.  "I only know of one medicine for a vampire." 

Alarmed, Leonie put a hand out to stop him. “Cabal, no!  You're barely on your feet as it is. You really, truly can't." 

"I'm....'  He paused and she saw him realise that he was not fine.  Not at all.  His hand was clammy.  He had lost too much blood.  "You will have to,” he continued.

"What?  No."  She snatched her hand back. 

Cabal took her by the shoulders and looked into her eyes.   He was deadly earnest.   Sweat beaded his brow.  “That is my brother, and he needs your help. Leonie, I believe he is going to die. His breathing is weakening”   

Leonie was shaking her head, an unwilling motion, her eyes lowered to Horst’s body.  “We don’t know that. Cabal, you know I like Horst, you know I do, but… I can't.  I know how strong he is.  There's no way we could stop him from draining me. He might not even wake up before he finished me.” She tried, for Horst’s sake and Cabal’s. She looked at Horst, and remembered the time he’d saved her in the Dee Society’s dungeon, how he’d tried to warn her about Cabal’s plan, the ache in his voice when he’d talked about his brother, his half-defeated hope that Johannes wasn’t a lost cause. But she didn’t want to die. And some deep part of her brain said that vampires hungered, and vampires killed. 

Cabal was implacable. “He is weak.  I will control him." 

“You can’t. And what if he turns me?" 

Cabal twitched, almost a flinch: he had not thought of that.  "Do not ingest any of their blood.  Don't even touch your face; your hands may already be contaminated.  We will sterilize them after you help Horst." 

She heard the plea in his voice, and she felt wretched. She knew, somehow, that he wouldn’t force her. She shook her head again.  "This isn’t fair, Cabal; you shouldn’t be asking me to do this.”   

“I know.  But I am.  I won’t let him hurt you, I swear it." 

“That doesn’t even make any sense!”  She said it on a half-laugh forced past the lump in her throat. 

Cabal was hardly more composed.  "I beg you, Leonie.  If I have harmed anyone, I have harmed him." His cold blue eyes were wide in fear and appeal.

And now she was terrified.  She was terrified because she knew she was going to do it.   

With a sense of unreality Leonie rolled up her left sleeve. Cabal found his scalpel. Were his hands shaking as he fumbled with the knot that closed his roll of little instruments? He checked her eyes to see that her resolve held, and he made a bold, precise slash in a particular spot. 

Horst's nostrils twitched at the smell. Leonie knew he could hear her frightened heartbeat, the quick breaths she tried to slow. She lowered the welling cut to Horst's open lips.

Cabal released the safety on his gun and placed it at his brother's head. 

She cried out as Horst’s jaws closed and his fangs pierced her in a shockingly sudden movement. One of his hands, covered in dry blood, flew up to hold her arm to his mouth, though she hadn’t moved and the cut was already flowing freely. Cabal did not touch the trigger, but the muscle in his jaw stood out. Leonie took deep, steady breaths through her nose and did not flinch away. There wasn’t pain, really, after the initial shock, but she could feel his eager pulls on her veins. She knew, roughly, how much blood she could spare, but she wouldn’t be able to tell how much Horst had taken until she passed out on the floor. And then, she supposed, Cabal might need to raise another skeleton to tote her along. She had a half-hysterical moment of amusement at the idea of Cabal followed by a trio of skeletons toting her, her father, and Horst, like a macabre string of ducklings. Perhaps he could raise one to carry him, too; he wasn’t looking very good. Every second, his gaze flicked between her and his brother.

“Horst.” Cabal’s voice was calm. “Horst, stop.” Horst did not stop, did not even open his eyes. 

“Horst,” he said, sharply. “That’s quite enough. Miss Barrow has had an active day already, and we have work to do.” There was no change from Horst.

“Horst,” Cabal chided, and, reversing the gun, struck Horst a blow on the temple that would have staggered a prizefighter. Leonie gritted her teeth as it jarred the fangs embedded in her arm, but the vampire didn’t seem to have noticed.

Leonie was worried. She felt fine, so far, but if Cabal was worried, she was worried. 

Leonie didn’t know what a bullet from the Webley would do to Horst’s brain. She didn’t know what it took to harm a vampire. Would it kill him? Or would it even distract him from drinking? Would the danger make him drain her? Of course, he showed every sign of doing that already.

Cabal bent down by Horst’s ear and whispered something savagely in German, too fast for her to catch.

Horst did not seem to have heard. 

“Cabal,” she said, and her voice shook.

He looked grim. He said something else by Horst's ear, forming the words with barely a breath. A pull on her veins. Another. And then a faltering.

Cabal repositioned the gun. He was about to put a hole in Horst’s skull that would drop a zombie.

“Wait! I think…. I think he's stopped,” she said, and Horst opened his eyes. 

He freed her arm before she knew he’d moved. 

***

Horst was smothering in layers of black that fuzzed his thoughts and obscured his senses. He had a vague sense that his body was shutting down but couldn’t figure out if that was a problem or what he should do about it. It was a little like falling asleep, he thought, and he liked the idea, because he hadn’t fallen asleep like this in a long time. It didn’t occur to him to wonder why.

There was a bolt of electricity; a smell that galvanized him. Something fiercely hungry awoke, and it fought to throw off the folds of unconsciousness. _Well settle down there_ , part of him thought vaguely. _What are you so wrought up about anyway?_ The hungry thing howled and succeeded in making his lips twitch. 

And then the lightning bolt touched him; warm skin and live blood met his mouth, and the hungry thing wrenched control of his body from the blackness. His fangs pierced skin with a delicious fragile burst, like the crack of the skin on a fresh grape. He became aware that his hand was shackling the arm to hold it in place with an instinctive gentleness, as if he was holding the wing of a butterfly. They were so breakable.

It was heaven. It was life. There was a knock on his head; he ignored it. There were voices somewhere; he didn’t understand them. He was the hunger, and the hunger was him. 

There was a voice in his ear; Johannes, he thought. That was nice. The meaning of the words took a moment to penetrate. Oh. Oh, no. Horst experimented with not drinking. It didn’t work. Not drinking: apparently it was important, for some reason that didn’t make sense compared to the blissful experience of drinking. He tried to control his muscles, but weakly. Oh well. He took another wonderful swallow.

Johannes’ voice again. But this time it was saying something odd, something that attracted Horst’s attention. Horst made a titanic effort. He threw himself into the hunger, felt it with every fibre, and taking control of it, wrenched it up and away, slammed himself back into his body, took a half-despairing last half-swallow, and…. 

There was Johannes, pale, drawn, holding a gun to his head. Leonie, shaken, also pale, her arm still above his lips. Her blood beaded on her skin, and it took everything he had not to lick it away. Bad form, he thought through the shame that did not entirely obscure the hunger. 

“Leonie, he said thickly, around his fangs. They were still slicked with her blood, and he saw the revulsion in her face. She swallowed and fumbled for a bandage. Lovely, he thought wretchedly. He sucked them clean. He was able to retract them now. “Leonie, it was… ? I’m so sorry. Are you all right?” 

“I’m fine.’ But she wouldn’t meet his eyes. “I’m glad it worked.’ She managed a half-smile and darted a glance at him. “See that I don’t have to do it again.”

“Yes, ma’am,’ he said, fervently. “I’m sorry. I’m so sorry. I wasn’t well. Twiccian set us on each other.’ He remembered the awful fight, grappling on the tile, slippery with blood from wounds that closed immediately. They had wrestled and bitten at each other, though the other vampire hadn’t tried to drink from him. Now Horst knew why. “Apparently I shouldn’t drink from other vampires, Johannes. Who knew?”

His brother rationed out a small, dry smile. “The gathering of experimental data is full of risks. How do you feel now?” 

“I think I was dying, a minute ago. Now…’ He considered. “Now I just have a stomach ache.” He could feel Leonie’s blood in his belly, intermixing with the pale ichor from the vampire. The smell of Johannes’ blood was strong. Horst saw the sticky gloss on his waistcoat. He felt his fangs trying to erupt again, and he strove to think unhungry thoughts. Not for the first time, he loathed himself. 

“Do you know a way out?” Leonie asked. She had a scar on her temple; he wondered if it was from the awful business last summer. She looked older, a difference more of expression than feature. He wished Leonie didn't still smell like blood, though she had wrapped a hasty bandage around the cut one-handed. He didn't offer to help. A cramp crushed his stomach, making him gasp and raise his eyebrows; he hadn’t experienced much pain since becoming a vampire, except hunger pangs. Years of them, he remembered, and unconsciously flicked his tongue around a fang. 

He made himself focus on her words, not her smell. “I woke up here. I’ve heard movement, and I can smell dead things somewhere….’ He noticed a skeleton in the corner of the room, docilely holding Frank Barrow. He stared for a moment. “You can catch me up on the details later. But that’ he pointed to a panel in the high ceiling, “opens to the sky. I’m told.” He glanced at the body of the other vampire. 

“What happened?” Leonie asked.

“It said Twiccian wanted us to fight. That he would keep the stronger of us.’ Horst looked at the body and felt sick. “It was older than me. But I don’t think it wanted to win.” God knows how long Twiccian had kept it here, or what its life had been like.

Johannes stood. “Fine. You and Leonie figure out how to get through to the roof.’ He turned to her. “I will get the book and come back.”

Leonie protested. “Cabal, you’re in no shape….”

“A book?’ Horst interrupted. _Of course it’s a book_ , he thought. “Let me get it. I’ll be faster.”

“Not if you don’t know where to find it. Stay with Miss Barrow and her father. The two of you must make us a way up to the ceiling. I will be back as soon as I can. How long until dawn?” 

“Hours. Lots of time to find somewhere dark. But Johannes, you don’t look well.”

“I will be back within… within an hour.’ He took the first aid kit out of his bag and tossed it at Leonie. “Wash your hands and your arm.”

And he walked away, Leonie and Horst watching him with identical expressions of irritation blended with concern.

Horst turned to her. She still smelled like blood. Monster, he chided himself. He had to distract himself, remind himself she was a person. “So. I thought you were done with Johannes?”

Leonie found a cleanish section of tile, sat down, and splashed her bare skin with alcohol, hissing when it hit the marks from his fangs. The astringent reek overwhelmed the smell of blood, and Horst could have sighed in relief.

“He and I are helping each other to get you and dad back from Twiccian.”

“And that’s all?”

She sighed. “We keep shouting at each other. I’m losing track of who is angry at whom for what, to be honest.”

They argued easily over how best to build something to reach the ceiling. Horst tried to use his strength to rip the cage walls from the hall outside, but his muscles seized and cramped, and the blood in his stomach roiled. 

Leonie patted his arm, having managed to forget he was higher on the food chain. “You're going to need some more time to get rid of that bad blood. Now, Twiccian really shouldn’t have stocked his lair with all these shelves….”

Their shelving-scaffold climbed toward the skylight; the pile of displaced skeletons in the room down the hall grew. Horst had occasional cramps, but they passed quickly. Half an hour after Cabal had left, Horst noticed something. “….what’s it doing?”

“It? Oh, Wilhelm.”

“Wil- the skeleton.” Wilhelm was looking over his scapula towards the door. His skull swivelled back to Leonie and Horst and turned to look back again. He stayed where Cabal had left him, holding Frank, but he shifted his weight uneasily.

“What do you think it means?”

“How should I know? That thing gives me the willies.” But Horst’s nostrils twitched. “Just a…. The door! Close the door.”

He was tearing there already, but he had called on the vampire speed without thinking, and a terrific cramp made him stagger. Leonie reached it at the same time, and they eased it closed as silently as they could. They could do nothing about the bars that should have crossed the other side; they would have to hope it wasn’t inspected. At least they had shut the storerooms they had been plundering.

Leonie looked up when the slap-slap-slap of the feet reached her ears. “It’s them. The same ones he used at the Dee Society.” She shuddered deeply. The rotting corpses were too fast, too strong, and they were more cunning than the skeletons.

The footsteps receded before they reached the cell block. Leonie hoped they hadn’t found Cabal.

They were more careful after that, pausing often for Horst to listen for the patrols. Or were they hunting parties? If they were, they were doing an uncharacteristically bad job, Leonie thought. But maybe they’d found Cabal. Leonie and Horst barred the door to the reinforced cell while they were outside it, in case anyone came closer. The feeling of reprieve was over; they both cast anxious looks at the door, hoping Cabal would come back quickly.

“So,’ Horst asked, trying for levity. “Did you give him that haircut in revenge?”

“Horst. No.”

Horst hesitated, then spoke. “Why did you befriend him in the first place?  Don’t try to tell me it was his idea.”

She shook her head. She had told Johannes as much as she cared to, and she didn't want to share it with Horst.

“You know, he told me he wouldn't forgive me if I killed you.”

“Really.” 

“He cares about you. As much as he can.”

“I know!’ Her voice was unexpectedly vehement. “He’s made a sort of mascot of me, and it makes him feel better for some reason.’ She dropped her end of a shelf with a clatter. “It's just that he does these dreadful things, Horst, and I miss him, but I can't live with it anymore.”

“Oh, damn.’ Horst drooped. “All right, I know. I don't blame you.”

“I bet he did.” 

Horst went about wedging the shelf into place. “I don’t know what he was thinking last summer. It took me weeks to pry the story out of him. But I want you to know, you were right about him. He really is different now.”

“You can say that after what happened?”

Horst kept going. “Look, continue to give Johannes hell, please.  But I honestly don't think we make him worse.  I think it helps. You know I… left him, after the carnival. I think I was wrong. If I'd stayed, I might have helped him.”

"Of course, that is my main aim and purpose in life, Horst.  Making your brother marginally less dreadful." 

“I love him.  And if you do, at all, then consider changing your mind.  I don't know what happened, but I don't think you have a truer friend. Maybe he’s really finished with it now.”

Leonie didn’t know what to think about that. Cabal had claimed he wouldn’t, couldn’t carry on as he had. She checked on her father again, who was still hanging limp in Wilhelm’s arms. She was getting accustomed to Wilhelm, she realised, and she wondered what that said about her these days. Horst had joined her. She was already back to thinking of him as Johannes’ big brother. He sniffed.

“I can smell drugs on your father.”

“Really? That’s a relief. I was afraid he was enchanted or something.” She gave him a smile, a more natural one this time. She straightened one of Frank’s braces, with an affection that made Horst ache a little. She liked to take care of her dad. Horst wanted, badly, to have her friends with Johannes again. He knew she didn’t want to talk about it; he knew he shouldn’t push, but he couldn’t help it.

“If you’d seen Johannes this fall, you would know how hard he took your separation.” 

Leonie snorted a laugh unbecomingly. “Yes. I’m sure he moped about the house all day and could hardly rouse himself to go rob a grave.’ 

Horst gave an apologetic nod.

“Well, he certainly seems to have got over it. He told me to ’shove my smug congratulations up my arse’ a minute ago. As for him missing me, come on, Horst. I promise you that Johannes Cabal wasn’t pining or lonely, or….”

Horst had heard that vampires were, generally, dignified and reserved creatures. That reputation was tested when he saw his brother enter the room behind Leonie, hear his own name, hear a few more words, blanch, and then stand irresolute, wondering if he could sneak out again. 

“…Or more than momentarily put out. He just doesn’t think or feel the way we do. We’re all just wallpaper, compared to himself - and to her. He’ll come around. Don’t worry about him, Horst.” She sounded a little bitter, a little sad. Horst saw his brother’s face change as he listened to what Leonie was saying. He recovered himself by the time she turned, alerted by Horst’s expression. 

Horst waited for Johannes to address Leonie’s comments. His brother sniffed. “So. You have been sitting around talking. Excellent progress.” His hand covered the book in his coat pocket.

“We’re just waiting for you,” Leonie replied with a bright, false smile. Perfect, Horst thought disgustedly. 

Horst swore daylight was still hours off, so Leonie let him go up to try the panel covering the window. It yielded to a lever; it had some sort of mechanism that allowed it to be operated remotely. Its removal bared a piece of night sky that seemed from below to be glassed in. 

“Johannes, you’ll have to come up. There’s some sort of magic-thing on it.”

Horst came down so Johannes could climb up. The structure was a marvel of speed and ingenuity, not stability. He offered Johannes a hand, but got a vampiric hiss of irritation for his pains. Johannes ascended the shelving without his usual grace. 

The entire structure swayed, and Cabal put one hand against the ceiling to steady himself. “Ah. Yes. One minute.” He put one foot up on the last step. He took out his flick knife to cut himself, thought better of it, and dabbed some blood from his shirttail onto the frame. “ _Y’prw glpt hhrg_ ,” he muttered, and rapped his knuckles on the rim of the skylight in a complicated counterpoint.

What had appeared to be glass was the ward; its destruction left the rectangular frame open to the night sky. Horst could immediately smell the wind that blew overhead. There was water, road dust, and gasoline, and under it, the smell of a winter night. 

And suddenly, Horst could hear a patrol approaching. He looked at the door; it was closed, if not barred. If they passed like all the others… but they couldn’t be that lucky. “Leonie, start up.” 

“Yes, in a moment. Do you suppose you could carry my father, Horst? I can help you get him up to the roof. I’m grateful to Wilhelm, Cabal,’ she said, looking up. “But out there, he’ll get you hanged the moment we find a helpful local.” 

“Leonie, Johannes,’ Horst broke in. “They’re coming.” He was already taking Barrow from Wilhelm - from the skeleton, he corrected himself; whatever in-joke Leonie and Johannes were indulging, he wasn’t in the mood. The bony arms pressed Barrow to its rib cage stubbornly. Horst grimly wished for a moment of the vampiric strength that would have shattered the thing in front of him, but he knew better than to try. The steps were nearing, almost as loud as they had been on the earlier patrols.

Johannes swore. “Let him go, Wilhelm.” And the arms dropped, though the bony head looked after Barrow as Horst took his weight. He tried to shift the unconscious man into a better position; Leonie was coming to help, but it was too slow, too late! Leonie was pale but resolute; she stayed by her dad. She could hear the steps as they reached the end of the cell block and turned down, coming closer.

Horst had a flash of his brother’s face, pale and miserable at the top of the scaffold. “Go, Johannes. You’ll get us out somehow,” he said with an attempt at confidence. Johannes’ hand was clenched bone-white on something in his pocket. 

Leonie saw it, and her face went sad. She swallowed. “Good bye, Cabal.” 

“Hide,” he commanded, but there was no time, and nowhere to hide. The door burst open, and they both turned to look, Barrow held between them. An evil-smelling horde of the half-decayed undead scrambled through the door, accompanied by a scattering of gun-carrying skeletons. 

There was time, there was certainly time for Cabal to climb from the topmost scaffold through the skylight and be gone into the night - or, more practically, into whatever Twiccian had prepared for rooftop wanderers - but he didn’t go. And when the skylight snapped shut like a trap and Leonie, Horst, and Frank Barrow were surrounded by Twiccian’s legions, Cabal climbed down to them without a word. He leaped easily down to their side with a bit of bravado his wound couldn’t really afford. Leonie looked at him with total incomprehension. Cabal didn’t look at any of them; he had put on his ‘my-I’m-being-captured-isn’t-this-boring’ face, even as he weaved back and forth from lightheadedness.

And Horst thought no more, as a skeleton shot him through the heart and through the head in quick succession.


	14. in which there are hypothetical puppies

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “It is a capital mistake to theorise from insufficient data,” Cabal pronounced.
> 
> “I read Sherlock Holmes too, you know. Do you have anything we could use as a lock pick?”
> 
> He opened his eyes. “You've learned how to pick handcuff locks?”
> 
> “No, but it seems like the sort of thing you should know.”

“The most I can do for my friend is simply be his friend.”  
Henry David Thoreau

Leonie and Cabal were alive. They were in a cell. They were still breathing and they were totally nonplussed.

Cabal had stifled his gasp of pain when the zombies stripped off his coat and threw it on the floor. Leonie removed hers quickly. Frank Barrow had been left behind them on the blood-fouled tile next to Horst’s body. Cabal had watched his brother’s face, and Leonie thought he was looking for signs of healing, but it was hard to see under the gore.

The walls of their cell were featureless. The electric bulb was recessed into the ceiling and protected. It was a very Arthur Twiccian kind of room, Leonie reflected: practical, carefully thought out, and unconcerned with making an impression. Leonie had seen several dungeons that boasted sinister manacles left dangling from the wall; gothic ironwork bars; a few suggestive rat-gnawed bones in the corner; mildewed hay; all potentially useful items. There was nothing here. 

He sat down against a wall and closed his eyes. Only his pride was keeping him from lying down. She sat, her handcuffs clinking. The floor was cold, and she missed her coat. Cabal was down to his shirtsleeves. “Do you think Horst will be all right?” 

“Horst is out of our hands,’ he said, eyes still closed. “Why not kill us immediately? There’s someone less competent interfering; I’m sure now. Look at this,’ Cabal said, gesturing at the room and his handcuffs. “Cursory at best. If Twiccian was running this, we would be at different ends of the complex, covered in chains, and drugged out of our wits. If, and only if, he wanted us alive. Why raise vicious undead and have them shepherd us around like collies?”

Leonie considered it. “I can't imagine him allowing anyone to muck up his precautions. Since he does seem to want us alive, maybe he has something he wants us to do for him.”

“Hm.”

“You don’t believe it?” She hoped it was true, but despite Leonie’s natural optimism, it wasn’t feeling likely to her, either.

“It is a capital mistake to theorise from insufficient data.”

“I read Sherlock Holmes too, you know. Do you have anything we could use as a lock pick?”

He opened his eyes. “You've learned how to pick handcuff locks?”

“No, but it seems like the sort of thing you should know.”

“Well, I don’t. I am a scientist, not a petty criminal.” 

Leonie shifted against the wall, trying to get comfortable. “You know, every time this happens I wonder why don’t we start wearing clothing with tools and weapons hidden in it.”

“You should read less fiction,” Cabal said absently.

“In our shoes, maybe. In the soles.”

“Apparently Twiccian spared me so I could perish from the banality of this conversation. Did you see the file the Dee Society keeps on me?” 

“…Yes.’ There was a pregnant pause. If they were going to die, did they really have to have this conversation, too? Things had been feeling almost normal. “All right.’ She had been dodging this, she realised now. That was silly of her. “They say you’ve killed more than ten people this year.’  She collected her thoughts.  "Did you try to keep it away from me?  Or was just a coincidence, that I never saw?" 

There was another pause. She wondered if he was going to answer. His eyes slitted open. Finally, he demanded, “name one of my so-called victims.” 

“Benediktsson." 

"Benediktsson was fine when I left him.’ His flat tone didn’t leave room for contradiction.  “He wanted a safe deposit box I was acquiring.  When I saw him last, he was gloating over my explosive device.  I had been working on it for two days, and I had to abandon the attempt when I lost it.  Simpleton.  He couldn't handle a radio set without printed instructions. I don’t know what happened to him.’  He thought for a moment.  "That question may answer itself, actually." 

Leonie said slowly, “they had to use dental records.  What about George E. Pratt?" 

Cabal snorted.  "Perfectly healthy.  Faked his death to escape his stultifying little family.  He's living in France with two young men and a lap dog." 

“Really. And Ms. Nguen?" She tried to keep her voice sceptical.

"Ah.  Her I did shoot.  But,’ he added dryly, “she was summoning a bat-monster the size of an aeroship at the time, and I was on the other side of the ring.  I really don't see what else I could have done.  I collapsed a few seconds later.”  He shrugged, a tiny movement against the wall, as if to say ‘this is what happens when you aren’t there.’ 

"Mrs. Henderson?" 

His eyelids snapped open at that. "She tried to kill me! With a warlock!  I've no idea what happened to her.  Good riddance." 

“When you say ‘with a warlock…’. No. Never mind. What about the bone fragments in Cardiff with the chemical burns?” 

"That was not even slightly human. It doesn’t count.” 

She braced herself for the next one. “Commandant Singh said you went back and killed Alfie after we left Glasgow.” That one had hurt. 

A shadow crossed Cabal’s face. “I didn’t. He disappeared. If they have proof of his death, they know more than I.”

“Why didn't you tell me?” 

“What was there to tell? And how was I to tell you?” 

It was true. She hadn’t opened his letters. But, but. “There was an awful-sounding business at a school outside Aberdeen.  The society apprehended a man and a woman, the Campbells.” 

"Brother and sister.  They said they were selling a book I wanted.  They were wasting my time, but we might  have been seen together.'  A vile pair; letting them go had made his gun itch.  "I knew nothing of their crimes in Scotland.  Nothing." 

“All right. It didn't sound like something you would be mixed up in.  The two of them did their best to implicate you when they were captured, and the Society was in a mood to listen. But it didn't save them from the firing squad." 

"Good." Cabal and Leonie shared strong, if opposing, feelings about capital punishment.  Cabal thought the gene pool could use a little proactive protection from time to time.   

“There was an old one.  Señorita Lucca?" 

“She beat me to something I needed.  I was planning to blow her kneecap off if she didn’t hand it over, but she was alive when I last saw her.  With her kneecap, if losing a little blood." 

Leonie grimaced. “That's not exactly savoury." 

"I didn't have a soul! And she was terrifying,” he added in an undertone.

Leonie struggled to take all of this in. The Society’s research had been meticulous, but it couldn’t have been unbiased. Cabal did meet a number of colourful characters, and they did not lead safe lives. “You honestly haven't killed anyone in a year?" 

He shifted uncomfortably and winced. ”Only persons who were about to kill me.  More specifically, only persons who were summoning a giant bat monster.  It is actually closer to two years.  But then, you have only my word against theirs.”  He said it neutrally, but he watched her.   

She waved the implied question away.  “So you haven't been killing people. And you were telling the truth about not doing terrible things anymore.”

Cabal was reluctant to say it again. It wounded his vanity. 

“But we're back to the same old question; why did you agree to work with Twiccian? Were you... I don't know, possessed or something?"   Leonie raised her knees up in front of her, so she wouldn’t touch the floor as much; Cabal had to be cold, too, unless he had a fever. She hoped they would live long enough to be worried about that.

He shook his head, his expression opaque. 

“Then why?” 

“You’re still asking me that?” 

“This is probably the last time” she replied, with an acerbic edge. Cabal nodded. They knew the footsteps would return - maybe tomorrow, but very likely sooner. There wasn’t much time. Paradoxically, it hung heavy on their hands; there was nothing to do. 

“It has been suggested that I have a temper." 

"Really?  Lead me to these unkind souls, Cabal, so I may chastise them." 

“That I have an unforgiving, even malicious, temperament.”

There wasn’t any point denying it. “Yes. Though I think you’re also too pragmatic to waste time on revenge.’ What was he trying to get at? “Oh god. You didn’t do it because of Witchfinder bloody Jones, did you?”

“I didn’t… not do it for that reason.’ The inelegant syntax was eloquent evidence of Cabal’s discomfort. “I was angry with them,' he said quietly. Naturally he ruined the effect of this confidence by continuing: “and then, of course, you turned on me, when I had been trying to bring them a little justice.”

Leonie sighed. She had tried to explain the difference between revenge and justice. “Is that supposed to make me feel better?" 

"It’s the truth, as far as I have been able to understand it. Isn’t truth supposed to heal, or set you free, or something? But if I should have known about Twiccian, shouldn't they have known about Jones and the sort of rathole he was running?’ He abandoned his justifications. “I did ignore the consequences.  It was stupid and short-sighted, and as soon as I saw the result I regretted it." 

“I don't need you to fight my battles, Cabal.”

"That's true. And the bloody irony of it is that, in general, I have been behaving with the gentle sweetness of an opiated rabbit.”

"That doesn't make the rest of it go away." 

"I made a mistake.  A bad one.  But it's made.’ He lifted an empty hand.  “What should I do?  Shoot myself?  Live in a hut and wear sackcloth?" 

“No. Just apologise.  Make reparations where you can.  And do better." He looked doubtful, but he didn’t say anything. 

She continued. “So you haven’t killed anyone lately.’ Cabal shook his head. “And you’re not going to.’ He shrugged. “All right, within reason. And the Dee Society….”

“…was a mistake.” His eyes were open now, and looking at her.

And that was as much as she was going to get. Johannes Cabal was never going to be safe or morally uncomplicated company. He often wouldn’t even be pleasant. But…. “I think I can live with that,’ she said quietly, as if she was speaking to herself. “I can live with that.” 

“Oh. Really.” She saw a rare flicker of surprise on his face.

“Yes.”

The nature of the silence slowly altered from awkward to companionable.

***

She continued. “You’re still appalling, you know.”

He didn’t reply directly. “What you said to Horst - you were partly right. I don’t automatically risk my life in hopeless causes or rescue puppies or - or dispense easy embraces. But I have never considered you a mascot. First of all, you’d be terrible at offering uncritical support.” 

“If I put a puppy in front of you right now, you would save it.”

The corner of his mouth turned up. “You would be disappointed.”

“You wouldn't be able to help it.’ She smiled evilly. “It's part of the conscience package.”

“If you're planning to test this hypothesis, don't start with your favourite puppy.”

“Cabal,’ she asked, her voice unnaturally serious. When he had glanced over, she continued. “I think I need a hug.” She was able to hold her face straight only so long.

Cabal’s caustic expression was a work of art. “Ask Horst. I'm sure he'd be delighted.” Leonie laughed, a relaxed, happy sound in the silence of Twiccian’s habitation.

Time seemed to be speeding by. “Queen’s bishop pawn to C3,” she said, out of the silence.

“…Unusual.” 

“Take your turn or be quiet.”

“Sensitive, Miss Barrow?”

“Very. Behave, or I’ll weave you a friendship bracelet.”

But the game was not to reach a second move; one last time, they heard the alarming sound of approaching footsteps, many creatures in step. 

“Cabal. I can’t believe I forgot; did they get the book?”

Head back against the wall, eyes closed again, Cabal smiled to himself.


	15. in which the hammer falls.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> She realised what she had done, and every chemical in her body dumped into her bloodstream at once.

“Friendship is unnecessary, like philosophy, like art.... It has no survival value; rather it is one of those things which give value to survival.”  
-C. S. Lewis

Cabal pushed himself to his feet, blood running from his lip. The revenant felt uneasy about the look in the blond man’s eyes, but after a nasty moment the man complied and knelt alongside the woman. The undead thing felt a muddy sense of relief. 

Leonie already knelt. After all, there was only Cabal and undead to see her. She was more preoccupied with the identity of the owner of the elaborate bench on the dais. It must be Twiccian. Was he going to make a grand entrance? 

The room was similar to the rest of the complex, but it was on a far larger scale. It may have been aiming for a modernist grandness, but the low ceiling left it stranded around the aesthetic level of ‘unusually bright parking garage.’ It was filled with armed skeletons, unpleasantly liquescent revenants, and a small assortment of other dead things: at least a hundred all told. All this was to… impress… them? It couldn’t be to impress the skeletons. Maybe this was Twiccian’s idea of a sufficient guard for two prisoners. 

“So,’ she asked. “Do you have a plan?” 

“Not as such.” He glanced at their silent guard. 

“I don't either,’ she said. 

“If you can get out, try to get back to Horst's cell. He might even be there. Escape. Leave your father behind if you can't find Horst. And destroy my house before Twiccian can get inside.” 

Leonie paused. “I suppose in this scenario I've stepped over your corpse on the way out. Would you like me to kick it a few times, too, or just spit on it?” 

“This is not the time for naïveté,’ he said flatly, looking sideways at her. “If either of us gets a chance, we take it. You will not get a prize for dying politely next to me.” 

“I promise not to hurl myself onto your funeral pyre, if that's what's bothering you. But you aren't dead yet.” 

“And I hope not to die. But let us be realistic.” 

“Fine. I will sell you out to Twiccian at the earliest convenient moment. I will trample your prostrate body to get to safety. Are you satisfied?” 

He ignored her. In the silence, she felt fear rising inside her like a cold morning mist. Cabal never admitted defeat, never even admitted he had planned for the eventuality. It was something she had learned from him without knowing it. 

A shadow darkened the doorway at the far corner of the room. Shrinking from the light in his own lair, dressed in an elaborately embroidered robe, glaring at every corner at once, it could be no-one other than Arthur Twiccian. Leonie compared his appearance to her memory from more than two years ago. He was tall and cadaverously thin. His hair was shorter than it had been; it looked like he had taken a knife to it, and the edge straggled along his jaw in clumps and points. Some item about his person jingled, probably one of his bizarre assortment of accessories: heavy boots that peeked out from his hem; gold jewellery gleamed from his hands and neck; and he wore ladylike kid gloves, formerly white, that looked like they were cutting off his circulation. The robe was stained with food: baked beans, she identified reluctantly. Atop it all he wore a small metal helmet. 

Twiccian glanced at them once, twice, three times, but he made for the dais without speaking. Cabal cleared his throat before his nemesis reached the stairs. “Are we playing charades? Two words? …Ah, I have it!’ He snapped his fingers. “Necromancer eyesore?” 

Twiccian had frozen in place like a terrified vole the moment Cabal spoke. When the content was not immediately identifiable as a magical attack, he coiled himself and hissed back. “On the plane you cannot see, I shine with the power of my protections. Why would you even leave your wards so exposed!” His cracked lip curled in disgust at Cabal’s relative nudity. 

Cabal rolled his eyes, despite the enforced submission of his posture. “Some of us have business that cannot be conducted from underneath our beds, Arthur. You know, if you wanted my attention, you could have sent a telegram. There was no need to start shipping vampires and retired detective inspectors about the country like cordwood. Now that you’ve gone to all this trouble, let’s have a chat. May I sit? It has been a fatiguing day, thanks to you.” 

He was playing for time. She wished she knew whether it was because he had been lying and did have a plan, or whether he was just hoping something would come up. 

Twiccian reacted poorly to Cabal’s suggestion. “Stay where you are!” The ranks of undead closed up tighter around them, forming a smelly shoulder-to-shoulder wall, and they lost sight of Twiccian until he appeared on the dais. 

Escape? Leonie had no immediate inspiration. The fresher undead could outpace them, certainly in Cabal’s current state. She hadn't seen a way out of this place yet, except for that skylight. It was resealed and, probably, under guard unless Twiccian had entirely lost his touch. 

“Fine, fine.” Cabal noticed that the undead reshuffled as Twiccian continually fine-tuned their positions. It was distracting, but it demonstrated unusual fineness of mental control over the things. He would like to see that dress-up box Twiccian was wearing up against a really serious calibre of bullet. Was there some way to turn his undead against him? Leonie was looking at the exits. Did she have a plan? He pushed his hand into his pocket, looking against hope for a clean handkerchief. 

Twiccian let out a shrill yip of dismay at the suspicious movement. He clawed up the skirts of his robe, shrieking, “die, die!” Leonie and Cabal both flinched away from the length of hairy bare leg before they looked back in horrified fascination. Twiccian held a semiautomatic gun of the newest make. They caught a glimpse of a leg holster and further weaponry strapped to his lower limbs as the robe’s hem fell back to the floor. 

They fell to the floor, but it was too late; the zombies and skeletons around them took impact after impact as Twiccian sprayed lead at them, the air cracking in two with every report. Leonie squeezed herself into the smallest, hardest ball she could. Her hands pulled her head into her chest so hard her chin ached. The gunfire halted. 

After a moment, she decided she hadn’t been shot in the head. It was hard to make herself unwind; she expected to feel the damage of flesh and bone as she moved. But she heard Cabal shifting, and she realised he must have been hit in all that, and she unwound in a half-panic, expecting to see him broken and bleeding. 

No. Cabal was on his hands and knees, but he wasn’t hit. Neither was she. The singing in her ears faded, and she calmed herself. A line of unmarked bullets rested on the ground before them. A glance at the stage showed their would-be murderer grovelling as well, directing a muttered stream of apologies and pleadings at an unseen figure. He darted frequent hateful glances at them, but the gun lay abandoned on the dais. 

And on the bench above it, something manifested. 

Later, Leonie had the impression it had been there all along, and it had simply allowed itself to be seen at last. But what she saw didn’t make any sense. ”What is that?  What is...  Cabal?" It looked just like the Devil. 

Cabal sighed and stood up. This time, the undead posted around them did not interfere.  "Miss Barrow, meet… well one of the avatars of Satan, who is Lucifer, lord of the pit, father of lies, and so on.  Lucifer, meet Miss Leonie Barrow." 

She appreciated the subtle rudeness that made Cabal introduce Satan to her rather than vice versa. But really? “Satan? Literally, Satan? Satan is sitting right there?” She demanded in an undertone. 

“Well…’ Cabal sized it up. “Probably some sort of earthly avatar. Probably.” 

Lucifer sat on the bench. He was larger than Twiccian - much larger - but, then if he was that large, how did he fit on the bench? How did he fit in the…? She shook her head and stopped trying to resolve the relative scale. 

Lucifer eased his weight back, propping himself on one arm. ”Oh, Johannes,’ it spoke, a gravel-stuffed cello singing with false regret. “How did we wind up here?  We never wanted to kill you." 

If Cabal was surprised by the assertion, he didn’t show it. ”Nor, as I understand the rules, are you allowed to." Otherwise, Satan could just bully people into giving up their souls. It must be frustrating, Cabal reflected. A little fear for life and limb could be so effective. 

"That's what Arthur is for,’ Lucifer replied.  “I am merely an appreciative observer."  Recognising his cue, Twiccian gave a little wave from where he stooped near - but not too near - the bench. 

"But you gave him souls! Isn’t that a bit over the line?” Leonie had decided she had better invite herself into the conversation if she wanted to say anything at all. 

“I would think so,’ said Cabal. “And I suppose you are why I have been unable to obtain infernal assistance.” 

Lucifer was miffed. “I imagine I may still empower mortal necromancers to pursue their own ends?  And command my own subjects - as unclear on the entire concept of subjection as they are," he added moodily. 

Twiccian was standing at stage left, inclining towards Satan to get his attention, and then wavering back in fear. He kept up a low mutter of “kill them, my lord. Kill them now.” 

Lucifer talked over him easily. “Arthur, for example. I had to supervise him constantly to keep you alive. I didn’t want you dead until I was sure we were finished with you. This place, for example? Built with your visit in mind. I was very clear,’ and he shot a look at Twiccian, who cringed and shut up for a few breaths, “about the death traps. The result? Riddled with them. Dynamite in the doorframes, land mines in the floor, pit traps in the loo. There was a flamethrower. Had to have the lot disabled, by imps this time. He can’t help it." 

“And then there was the lava pit,” Leonie offered. 

“Lava pit. See, exactly that sort of thing.” 

“What I cannot understand,’ Cabal said, “is how either one of you thought this association was a good idea. You know Twiccian is so mentally unstable any sudden loud noise could be his last. And don't you know,’ he said to Twiccian, “that he's the adversary? He is fundamentally not on your side. He can't be.” 

Twiccian scowled. “At least you know where you stand with him!” 

“You don't really think that.” 

Twiccian's face showed that plainly he did not, in fact, think that. 

“Leave Arthur alone. We're here to talk about you.’ And Lucifer’s attention fell on Cabal with the weight of a basalt elephant. Even Cabal was silenced for a moment by the mass of it. A brief moment, so Satan hurried to get the first word in before he could recover. “This is pitiful, Johannes.  Do you know how much work we invested in you?  The magic, of course." 

Cabal straightened his spine. “You took my soul in exchange for that." 

“Pish tosh.  Purely for the form of the thing.  Your soul couldn’t possibly cover our costs. It was a miserable, filthy, ragged little thing,’ Cabal tried to interject, but Satan rolled on.  “That soul?  We couldn’t have boiled a cup of water with it, the state it was in.  Do you remember the stains?  The smell of laboratory chemicals and blood?"  
   
“There’s no need to descend to common insults." 

“I am being purely descriptive. No, we regarded it as an investment.  You were so interesting, Johannes.  All that rage and pain crammed into a hyper-rational ego.  Blundering around the planet, poisoning everyone you met a little.  Or a lot.’ Lucifer almost smiled. 

Cabal visibly bit back a response. 

"It only took a little hope, and you would do anything.  Just anything.  We planned to keep you spinning in circles for decades.  We would have wound you up and let you go, go go….  Maybe we would even have allowed you to bring the girl back to life - in some way that suited us.’ and his smile deepened into such illimitable malice that even Twiccian averted his eyes from it. 

Cabal swallowed mid-breath. Leonie went to his side.   

"Oh, we knew why you wanted the power.  Little man!  As if you could have hidden it from me. And now?  You’re commonplace.  Self-limiting. Not that you did it all by yourself.  I mean, really,’ said Satan, addressing a secretarial imp that appeared by his side.  “Aren’t the vampires supposed to be ours?  Am I making that up?'  He waved his question, and the imp, away.  "It scarcely matters.  And then there’s Leonie.  Oh, Leonie. I was really hoping Johannes here would have a proper effect on you.  I begin to despair, my dear." 

He sighed.  "You’ve done your bit to drag Johannes from the broad and winding.  It’s ironic, when you consider that we involved you in the first place.’  He reminisced.  “We had really hoped that you would break him." 

"I beg your pardon?" For Leonie Barrow, politeness was a habit that died hard. 

“Well, he might have killed you.  Or stolen your soul and _left it stolen_ ,’ he added at Cabal. “Either would have suited us nicely.  Or, at the very least, your father might have killed Johannes, or given up his own soul to keep you safe. I admit, I rather hoped one of you two might have become infatuated with the other and really ballsed things up, but that was not to be.  No. You just were just kind to each other.’ His tone could have curdled water. 

“Well, here we all are.  There's no point in crying over spilled spinal fluid. You're no good to me in this state, Johannes; Arthur wants you dead for some reason, and I was happy to help out if it meant having a good old gloat and watching him kill you." He sat back and beamed. 

"But…’. Leonie had argued for Cabal’s goodness; surely she could argue for his evil, she thought. “If you’ve invested all this effort in him, wouldn’t it be better to wait and see what happens? After all,’ and she gave Cabal a critical look. “I wouldn't be surprised if he backslid into depravity.” 

“I can't trail after Johannes indefinitely hoping he'll change. I’ve decided to cut my losses.  And I have Arthur. He's not quite as intricate a puzzle, although he's sufficiently bizarre. It isn't as much fun to see him writhe, but he'll get the job done.” 

“If it’s any consolation, I don't like the idea of heaven, either,’ said Cabal.  “You’re both repugnant." 

“Well, that’s lucky, Johannes, because you’d have some way to go if you wanted to climb up there.  You’re mine yet." 

Leonie sniffed. “Is he really? Or will he be, for much longer?” 

Lucifer snorted. “Yes. Though I was hoping he would throw you bodily at the approaching army. Or, at the very least, take the book and run. We would have let you go then, Johannes. But you climbed back down among your loser friends like a beaten dog.’ 

“Hiding it in the lectern was clever, Johannes. It was magical too, and it would have camouflaged the book from Arthur here. And then popping it on the roof showed some cunning, but we found it almost immediately.” 

The devil produced it with a flourish, though Leonie couldn’t sort out if he held the volume in his hand or pinched between two colossal fingers. “If only I’d known there was one of these still about, we could have left Horst where he was. It would have got you out on the trail faster than your own flesh and blood, wouldn’t it, Johannes? Though I admit, I was hoping you would stay home. None of this would have been necessary then.” 

He flipped through it. “This one has been on the banned list for some time, and I’d thought we’d destroyed all of them on earth. Our business, souls, not yours. But I might have let you have it, if you had been in the right frame of mind. But here - Arthur! - Would you care for it?” 

He tossed the book lightly at Twiccian, whose face changed to a rictus of joy as he realised what he held. If Leonie had been able to annihilate the entire structure, with her, Horst, Cabal, and even her father inside, she would have pushed the button and cheered on the flames. Damned Cabal! Damned Edith. At this rate, they might all be damned by sunrise. 

Cabal had studied the floor for a moment, and she had seen his knuckles whiten in a fist. His voice betrayed nothing. “Well. Hell and damn,’ he said easily. “Also, drat. Will there be anything else? I suppose Miss Barrow may be off home?” 

“Oh yes. None of you are going to live, and Arthur certainly doesn’t like her either. Come now, surely you knew that. Is your brain softening as well as your soggy little heart, Cabal?” 

“But if you only want to kill us, why bring us all this way? You said something about not being finished with us?” 

“This was by way of a last chance for Johannes, my dear. I was hoping he would refuse to accept your help - or leave you on the island - or feed you to Twiccian's guards on Edith’s world - Edith says hello, by the way, and she isn’t enjoying her stay. She’s leading the imps a merry chase. My kind of woman, that.” 

_Father of lies,_ Leonie reminded herself, _Father of lies._ Though. It didn’t seem totally impossible. 

“Master,’ Twiccian addressed Lucifer. “Lord of all that is unclean. King of the….” 

“Let’s dispense with the endearments, Arthur. What do you want?” 

“I wish to use your gift, obtained for me by Barbatos the demon.” 

“Oh, all right,’ he said, like a bored papa authorising a harmless treat for a child. “Have at it. I suppose I’ve said everything I wanted to.” Twiccian winced at the dangling preposition, but he must have given a mental command, because a skeleton came through the door carrying a cushion. On it rested a black gauntlet, finned all over with sparkling blades. If, in an absent-minded moment, its wearer had an itchy nose, he would julienne his face. 

Twiccian’s face had an awful avidity, which briefly shifted to vigilance when he stripped off his white glove to don the weapon. 

Cabal interrupted. “Barbatos, you said?” 

“Yes. What of it?’ Lucifer asked. 

“The one who also gives understanding of the barking of dogs?” 

“And you have decent light baritone, Johannes, but you don’t emphasize that part of your skill set. Let’s not start down that road; you won’t enjoy it.” 

The undead had formed into a circle that separated them from the dais. “I will use its swift annihilating force against the one who has mocked… who has displeased you,’ he corrected anxiously, at a frown from the demonic eyebrows. “My lord.” Twiccian threw in. 

He extended his gloved fist towards Cabal and with some invisible effort, engaged its power. 

The effect was immediate. Cabal fell to the ground with a disorganized vocalisation of pain and dismay. He shuddered like he was having a seizure. His eyes were clenched shut. He didn't scream, but he made an involuntary little sound with every breath. Whatever this was doing, it wasn’t very good for him. Leonie’s nails dug into her palms; after a moment, she knelt next to him. “Cabal.” Was he weakening already? 

Not quickly enough for Twiccian, however, who huffed a little breath of impatience. Leonie thought, with a misplaced sense of superiority, that Cabal’s preference for firearms was being vindicated again. Not so pleased with the Devil's little gift now, was he? Sweat beaded on Twiccian’s brow. He shook the gauntlet, as if that might make it work faster. Twiccian wasn't enjoying this, she realised. He wasn't delighting in Cabal’s pain, didn't even desire his death, except as a means to an end. He bit his lip. He looked like he just wanted it to be over. 

She thought it was the saddest thing she'd ever seen. “Stop. Please stop. It's all right, you don't have to. We won't hurt you, I promise.” 

Well. She hadn't actually expected that to be the end of it. A choked sound came from Cabal - laughter, now? - and Lucifer tapped his fingers together in polite applause. Twiccian himself seemed nonplussed. “But,’ he said, confused, “I do have to. You all have to go. Every one of you, some day. And you two now.” 

“You damned coward,” she said, and took two steps toward the dais. 

“Get back,’ Twiccian snarled. “Wait your turn.” He raised his other hand, and a force punched her under the ribs and sent her staggering back into the enclosing rank of skeletons. 

She automatically grabbed ribs and clavicles to keep herself from falling. 

One bony arm propped her up, which made it difficult to recoil in revulsion the way she wished. She flinched before realizing it was only helping her to…. He was offering her his gun, butt-first. 

This was not a time to be lingering over motive, but it took her a moment to catch up. “Wilhelm?” she mouthed. 

The skull nodded eagerly, and the clicking bone fingers thrust the weapon into her hands. It… he… gave another little nod and vanished into the ranks. It had hardly taken an instant. 

She wouldn't have more than a second. Every moment she delayed meant a greater chance of discovery. Lucifer and Twiccian were focused on the man they both hated so much as his life drained away. But still she hesitated, delayed the moment when she would do it, when she would try to kill a man. Was there another way? Could she offer them something they wanted more? And then Cabal screamed. 

She made no conscious decision; in that second, everything she was snapped into alignment. Deadly as a drawn bow, she sighted down the barrel of the unfamiliar gun and shot Arthur Twiccian twice between his astonished eyes. 

The revenants and skeletons dropped to the floor at once, as if their strings had been cut. They sounded like a drawerful of tools being tipped out on the floor, as guns and swords clattered against bone and tile. One skeleton still stood nearby; it looked towards Cabal, down at its fellows on the floor, and back at Cabal. He lay down, a little sheepishly. 

A voice spoke from the dais. “You… you little….” 

And the electric light was choked by darkness, an unreasonable, causeless darkness that coagulated and half-cloaked the figure of Lucifer, who was on his feet, hulking over the room. Leonie’s gaze had been locked on Twiccian’s limp body, but surprised by a new threat, her finger tightened on the trigger, and she sent one more bullet from the chamber. It struck Lucifer’s broad breast and punched a tiny hole through the skin. 

He looked down for a moment, as astonished as her. She dropped the gun, which struck the floor like an echo of the gunshot. She realised what she had done, and every chemical in her body dumped into her bloodstream at once: fight-flight-faint-laugh-scream…. She glanced at Cabal; his face had been lax with shock and ebbing pain, but as the situation dawned on him, she saw an expression grow on his face: fear. Fear for her. _Well,_ she thought. _I’ve really made a cake of it this time._

From the centre of the darkness, Lucifer roared, a sound that could not have issued from a human throat. All thought was forgotten in the pure prey-animal terror that thrilled along her bones. “You dare,” he said, in a voice like a storm, like sails tearing in the wind, like timbers snapping underfoot. 

The carpet of undead shivered. And they rose. They were drawn up to their feet like puppets on strings, and their forms were clotted with smoke and dull flame. All except one; Wilhelm, who was now lying on the floor alone. He stood, uncertainly. All at once, their eyes lit with a common burning. There was a slow, arthritic movement to her side: Cabal standing up. The undead looked at Leonie, who took a step back. Her hands were shaking. She wouldn’t beg. She racked her brain for something to say, here at the end. 

Lucifer raised a vast hand, palm out. Vapours and darkness wreathed him, and the room was heavy with the stench of hell. 

And Cabal strolled between them. His hands were in his pockets, and his icy calm was utterly unmarred. The glow of eyes reflected from the still pools of his blue spectacles. Only Leonie could see the tremor in his legs. 

“Oh, I don’t know about that,’ he said in the ominous silence. “I think you would get in trouble. And you know what he’s like when he’s angry.” And he stood perfectly still while Lucifer thought about that, thought it might be worth it. The revenants took a sucking step forward. And then, Lucifer decided it might not be worth it. 

He roared deafeningly, and threw the bench at them in his petulant rage; it flew apart into splinters when it struck the floor before them. And then he was gone, leaving the undead collapsed in fresh piles and Leonie and Cabal quite alone. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> For my husband, whose wonderful, vile, heartbreaking character Twitchy the Litch I have borrowed.  
> *  
> For my splendid readers - and especially the commenters - and especially the ones who have been with me since very nearly the beginning. My heart's in this one, and I'd dearly love to know if you liked it.  
> *  
> For The Real Author, Mr H, for letting us play.
> 
> I will post a final chapter a little before the book release and an epilogue a little after that - unless the last chapter eats the epilogue, which has been known to happen.


	16. which readers with sensitive teeth may wish to avoid

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “You should rest here. I’ll go look for dad and Horst.’ But she didn't stand.  
> 
> After a while, she said, “do you remember the first person you killed?" 
> 
> “Of course I do.”  He didn’t turn from the bookshelf.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Posting early because it was done, and it's a beautiful day, and I couldn't wait. Thank you.

The provinces of his body revolted,  
The squares of his mind were empty,  
Silence invaded the suburbs,  
The current of his feeling failed; he became his admirers. 

W.H. Auden, _In Memory of W. B. Yeats_

 

Twiccian had been an unlovely man in life, and a pair of bullet holes through his face didn’t improve him.  He was thin and long-boned, and his stringy hair was threaded with grey.  His cheeks had a fine grizzled stubble.  Leonie imagined him at the mirror a day or two ago, making a shaving face as he scraped the patch beneath his nose.  His eyes were milky jade green. 

Cabal was at her elbow.  “He’s the first person you’ve killed." 

“ ‘First' suggests I’m planning…’ but her voice broke, and she nodded.  

He bent stiffly down to Twiccian and closed his eyelids.  He folded the dead man’s arms, straightened his legs. He went to the shattered bench and brought back the shredded upholstery to cover his face. He was always gentle with the dead, she thought. 

That done, he led them to the door from which Twiccian had entered.

It was a bedroom of sorts, not so different from his den back at the sanctuary of Naberius. He had lived here only briefly, so it was comparatively fresh and new. Leonie sat down on the cot. Cabal found an enormous first aid kit, a sort of clinic in a box. They tweezed the larger splinters in silence and wound each other in bandages for half an hour or so. He selected one of Twiccian's salves for his bullet wound. Her arms had taken a shredding when she raised them to protect her face from the flying splinters of bench. She watched Cabal give them a neat mummy wrap.  He tucked in the ends of the bandages with an brutal effectiveness that made her grunt.  It was, despite everything, nice to see him again. 

Now that they were going to live, she thought, there was work to do. They had to find Horst and dad, find out if either of them was still alive, find out where this place was located - was it in England? Was it on Earth? - and find a way home. She might be the most able-bodied of any of them, so she should take the lead. She felt nothing but disinclination and a grey fatigue. She did her best to forget the dead man's eyes - Arthur Twiccian's eyes, she corrected herself - and tried to plan.

Cabal inspected Twiccian's bookshelves, hands clasped behind his back. Leonie spoke up behind him.

“You should rest here. I’ll go look for dad and Horst.’ But she didn't stand.  

After a while, she said, “do you remember the first person you killed?" 

“Of course I do.”  He didn’t turn from the bookshelf. 

“Don’t you dare touch so much as a pamphlet, Cabal. I am not dealing with another monster or sewing your arm back on or haring off to rescue you from Fairyhome or some damn thing.”

She wouldn’t say Twiccian had needed killing. No-one needed killing.  Even the corpse on the dais outside had once had potential: a brain and a soul.  A great brain, though she wasn’t willing to commit herself regarding the quality of the soul. But he had become twisted and polluted, and she couldn’t see what else she could have done. She was angry at him for taking her father and Horst, and for putting her through the past few days, but most of all, she was angry at him for making her kill him.  “I had to; I just wish I hadn’t had to. Dad's never killed anyone." 

Cabal turned back reluctantly. “No, I wouldn't have thought policing the mean streets of Penlow provided much scope for gunning down the citizenry." 

Tears started at the corners of her eyes. Cabal saw, and he frowned. He opened his mouth to speak and then shut it again.  No words would help, or at least no words he could find. She had killed a man. The justifications that satisfied him would not help her. He wished her father was here. Perhaps he would just see how Horst was getting along. Leonie sat in her misery.  

Somehow, instead of leaving he found himself sitting beside her. They stared at a robe Twiccian had hung from a nail on the opposite wall. He supposed he should pack up the man’s personal belongings and sort through them for magic. The idea held limited appeal. He exhaled a deep breath. And tentatively, slowly, like someone attempting a delicate operation for the first time in eleven years, he put his arm around Leonie's shoulders.  She didn't pull away.  He drew her close beside him.   

And carefully, like someone approaching a difficult and complicated person - or perhaps like someone approaching a wolverine - she put her arm around him, too.  She let her head sink onto his shoulder. She relaxed into him. There was a fraught moment, during which they both waited for something to go terribly wrong: Twiccian to burst in with a gun, Lucifer to pop out of a closet and annihilate them both, the ceiling to cave in and a great voice to…. Nothing happened. 

She felt his chest move in a sigh. They stayed like that.  

Leonie thought about their games. She remembered their unexpectedly companionable travels, and the time they had spent a whole day arguing about which Greek philosophers had been necromancers on the quiet. She pictured him lying on the floor in Twiccian’s place, and she imagined how she would feel. His warm shoulder rose and fell with his even breaths. She hugged him, carefully above the bullet hole, because she could. She had killed Twiccian - shot him nearly in cold blood. She felt sick about it, but she thought she’d do it again, if he threatened Cabal.

Cabal tried not to think at all. If he did, it would all be ruined.

No lightning struck them down. 

 

***

Horst flitted through the halls of Twiccian’s lair. He didn’t mean to flit, exactly, but unless he remembered to bump into things and scuff his shoes on the floor, he didn’t make much noise anymore. When he didn’t pay attention, he would flit.

He had awoken at nightfall. He guessed that Leonie’s blood had been enough to heal him as well as neutralize the bad blood from the other vampire. But like so much about being a vampire, he only had instinct and intuition to tell him so. It was night, and everything was silent; no rustles of undead or vibrations of distant movement. Certainly no gunshots or screams. He picked up Frank Barrow, who was still lying at his side, and left the abattoir of a cell.

He followed the smell of his brother’s blood. He found a cell where Johannes and Leonie had been kept. Frank felt lighter, now, and Horst was getting hungry. He ignored the voice saying that Frank wouldn’t miss a little blood. He followed the trail to a vast room where the stench of slumped undead drowned out all other smells, but he heard breathing. He closed his eyes with relief; they were alive, then. 

He almost dropped Frank when he came through the door. They sat side by side on a folding bed, eyes closed. Leonie’s arms were around Johannes. He had one arm around her, his fingers curved around her shoulder protectively. Her head was on his shoulder, and his cheek rested on her hair. His face was peaceful, and as Horst watched, Leonie smiled to herself.

Horst felt wonder, surprise, a twinge of old grief that surprised him. A brotherly urge to walk up within an inch of Johannes and say ‘boo.’ What won out was happiness, and a kindly urge. He flitted out of the room and returned, scuffing the floor a few times. 

Their eyes were open, now, and a little startled. He added another credit to Johannes’ account when he didn’t shove Leonie off the cot upon discovery. If anything, his arm tightened a fraction. His glare at his brother, however, was blistering. “And hello to you, too, Johannes, Leonie. I’m…” _alive_ didn’t seem right. “I’m up.”

Leonie squeezed Johannes before she raised her head and sat up, a grin dawning at the sight of them. “Thank God you're all right! Thank you for getting dad. He’s still out?”

“Asleep, but I think he’s beginning to come out of it.”

“I’m sorry we didn’t go get you immediately.” She ran out of things to say, and Horst pretended not to notice.

Horst put Frank down on a convenient surface, Twiccian’s mortuary slab. Johannes turned his back, apparently absorbed in Twiccian’s books. He tugged the black kid leather of his gloves back into place. Horst could almost feel the hot waves of anger and embarrassment radiating from Cabal. Horst caught Leonie’s look at Johannes’ back. She understood.

She took her father’s hand. “Dad?” Cabal watched her hold his hand and talk to him. Barrow was moving and making vague little noises now. Cabal fidgeted his glove between finger and thumb. 

Horst braced himself. He was preparing to have his head bitten off. They hadn’t been getting along lately, not at all, but there were some things only he could say. He was going to say them, whether Johannes wanted to hear them or not. He came up beside him and spoke quietly. “It’s all right that you like her, you know.’ 

Johannes’ face was impassive, but the fidgeting didn’t stop. “It doesn’t mean you’re unfaithful. It doesn’t mean you don’t love her still. It’s just… good.  I'm proud of you, little brother.” And on an impulse, he pulled Johannes’ head over and kissed it. “We're going to be all right, you and I.”

Johannes pulled away and gave him an incredulous glance. Horst added. “And. In case you’re worrying, Leonie’s far too smart to fall in love with you.’ He grinned, showing a bit of tooth. “Now let's leave. You all smell like breakfast to me.”


	17. In which our friends are friends

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Cabal was having a trying evening. He lay on a hotel bed, which was too soft, except for the pillows, which were some sort of institutional foam that resisted his feeble efforts to reshape them. He wore a pair of pyjamas Horst had bought him, pale blue with grey piping. He had flatly refused to wear the coordinating bedsocks, but the pyjamas were a necessity. His hotel bedroom - emphasis _his_ , emphasis _bedroom_ had been invaded by his brother, Leonie Barrow, and Detective Inspector Frank Barrow (ret.), late of the Penlow-on-Thurse police department, somewhat more recently of Arthur Twiccian’s broom closet.

_Does it look like a pair of pyjamas,_  
_Or the ham in a temperance hotel?_  
_Does its odour remind one of llamas,_  
_Or has it a comforting smell?_  
_Is it prickly to touch as a hedge is,_  
_Or soft as eiderdown fluff?_  
_Is it sharp or quite smooth at the edges?_  
_O tell me the truth about love._

-W.H. Auden

 

Cabal was having a trying evening. He lay on a hotel bed, which was too soft, except for the pillows, which were some sort of institutional foam that resisted his feeble efforts to reshape them. He wore a pair of pyjamas Horst had bought him, pale blue with grey piping. He had flatly refused to wear the coordinating bedsocks, but the pyjamas were a necessity. His hotel bedroom - emphasis _his_ , emphasis _bedroom_ had been invaded by his brother, Leonie Barrow, and Detective Inspector Frank Barrow (ret.), late of the Penlow-on-Thurse police department, somewhat more recently of Arthur Twiccian’s broom closet. 

There was nowhere to hide. They were eating dinner around and partially upon his bed. Except Horst, of course. Horst had not shared his dinner arrangements.

They had found, upon reconnaissance of the exterior of Twiccian's lair, that it was in the everyday world. So much so, in fact, that it was actually located in an industrial area of Wandsworth. It would be a convenient spot for the diffusion of hordes of undead through the capital and also not the first place one would look. “I can’t believe,’ muttered Leonie, politely waving farewell to the passer-by who had given them directions to the hotel, “that we were a Tube ride away from this place a few days ago. We should look in on Brian the Twiccian-admirer and see if he made it.” 

But they were far too tired and ragged. They reeled into the nondescript hotel before dawn and took rooms (all separate, to the mild confusion of the clerk). Cabal had refused to be taken to a hospital. This debate had become heated between him and Leonie, but he simply outlasted her outrage, and they all went to sleep. 

They awoke, dazed and ravenous, after sundown. That is, about half past three in the afternoon of a London November. Horst volunteered to go out for food. He returned with a vast picnic hamper, relaxed and energised, and Leonie and Cabal may have drawn their own conclusions. 

Cabal’s room was the natural gathering place. He wanted to rise and dress, but Horst had not supplied him with a suit to replace his shredded, bullet-pierced, blood-soaked one. Horst hadn’t forgotten the suit; he also hadn’t forgotten that Johannes’ legs had given out while they were checking in. Johannes suspected no street clothing would be provided until Horst was satisfied with his health. Cabal was making plans of his own, but perhaps for now it was not so bad to lie in bed, clean and safe, and watch the faces of his companions as they celebrated the unlikely success of their…. “You will remove your dinner roll from my coverlet immediately.”

Leonie sipped her ginger beer daintily and retrieved her roll. “You should wear blue more often. Brings out your eyes.” Horst smirked.

Frank Barrow was not celebrating. He nibbled on a ham sandwich. The last time he laid eyes on Cabal, the man had been in charge of a demonic carnival, extorting Leonie’s soul. The intervening years had complicated things; the return of her soul; her later associations with Cabal; his purported rescue of her from the Dee Society; but Barrow had never entirely abandoned his cherished plan of beating Cabal to a pulp and turning the pulp over to the police for booking and imprisonment. 

The wind had been taken out of his sails by Cabal’s injury and by his own weakness following his ordeal, but chiefly, in the end, by Leonie. She had led him over to that bastard’s bedside. “Dad, this is Herr Johannes Cabal. Cabal, this is my father, Detective Inspector Frank Barrow.”

She stared at them. God-damned charade, both of them thought. But they knew what was expected of them; they shook hands. Leonie was satisfied. She didn't require enthusiasm, just compliance. She continued her pantomime of introduction. “Dad, Herr Cabal recently prevented me from being torn apart by a horde of Satanic skeletons. Isn't that nice?’ Frank grunted. “Cabal, my father also enjoys gardening. Why don't you tell him,’ and her voice turned steely, “about your dahlias?” Horst Cabal’s open amusement wasn’t winning him any points with Frank Barrow. 

So he didn’t do anything to Cabal. He just watched the bastard and his daughter and tried not to ascertain exactly how close they were.

“I thought you wanted me to rest. Instead you are throwing a party around my toes.” Cabal’s voice was peevish. 

“A party?’ Horst’s face expressed his honest shock. “This isn’t a party. This is barely a picnic. You will know, Johannes, when I throw a party.” A reminiscent smile started to play around the corners of Horst’s mouth, and Leonie forestalled a series of entertaining but irrelevant anecdotes.

“No,’ she said to Cabal. “We want to hear how brilliant you’ve been, my boy.’ Frank made some quiet, choked sounds around his tea. “What was all that business with Wilhelm?” 

They had arrived with a single piece of luggage. The trunk emitted occasional dry noises, as if its contents were poorly packed and settling within. Cabal glanced towards it. 

“The manner in which the remains are raised matters. Twiccian's process, while economical and simple, was very different from mine. I used one of my own test batches. They are tailored for the restoration of human faculties. And take your feet off my bed,’ he continued, without a change in tone. “Were you raised in a barn?’

In the face of Cabal's and her father's combined disapproval, Leonie complied and he continued.

“I had not expected it to have much of an effect upon a skeleton, but he is a minor success: intelligent - a little more so than a dog, I think - helpful, quiet.

“I was able to give him one last command when our escape was interrupted by Twiccian’s servants: ‘hide.’ “ He looked at Leonie and Horst and hoped they would give cries of wonder and confess that they had thought the instruction was meant for them. Leonie was apparently hunting for more cold chicken. Horst was looking at the food wistfully. Cabal moved on. “Wilhelm was intelligent enough to grasp the intent, so he fell in with the other skeletons. What I wish I knew….” Why had Wilhelm understood that they needed a gun and brought it to Leonie, who had the opportunity to use it? He wasn’t sure. Either Wilhelm had picked up on Cabal’s urgently transmitted thoughts in the extremity of those (apparently) final moments, or he had puzzled the situation out for himself. Either way, Cabal resolved to investigate the test batch, and Wilhelm, further. 

Frank Barrow was tired of waiting for him to finish his thought. He put down his ham sandwich. “Let me run through this once…. Mr. Cabal.’ It had cost him some effort to redact ‘you bastard,’ from that sentence, but it was becoming easier with practice. “I was kidnapped from my couch because a deranged necromancer wanted to to kill you and Leonie. You travelled through London, Ireland, some Sapphist love-planet, and somehow landed back in London. Upon arriving, you found Twiccian had enlisted the help of Lucifer.” He paused.

“Of course, when you put it like that, it sounds ridiculous,’ said Horst, deadpan.

“And then what happened?” The question was professional but pointed. Cabal, weakened and pyjama’ed, felt a hint of what it meant to be a reticent criminal in the care of Frank Barrow, policeman.

“I shot the necromancer,’ confessed Cabal coolly. “It seemed like the only thing to do.” Horst nodded. Frank joined him, too meaningfully for Leonie's taste.

Then what he said hit home. She began to correct him, realised she didn't have to, but why would he…. “Oh, Cabal. Thank you.” And the happy gratitude of her smile made Horst and Frank feel redundant for a moment. “But no.’ The smile faded. “It was me. I killed him.”

“I thought you might rather not….” Cabal’s voice was quiet. 

“In present company. I know. Thanks.’ 

“You killed the fellow, Leonie?” Frank had forgotten his sandwich.

She turned her attention completely to him. “Yes. I didn’t want to. But he was killing Cabal, and I suppose I was next. And sorry, dad, I’ve thought about it, and I don’t intend to turn myself in. It’s just too… with Lucifer and everything….”

“That’s fine. Understandable.’ He shook his head, denying any desire for his daughter to turn herself in to the Wandsworth police and recount her story. “I’m sorry, Lee.” He squeezed her hand and looked troubled for her. 

They ate and planned. Leonie and Frank would depart the next morning. Leonie didn’t say so to his face, but she plainly felt her father needed his own bed, a doctor’s visit, and a good rest. Frank left for his room when they’d arranged their schedule. He didn’t like to leave Leonie alone with the Cabal brothers, but he didn’t want Leonie to know that, so he left. 

The atmosphere in the room eased a little. Leonie and Horst tidied up. “And you two?” she asked.

Horst put the lid back on a jar of gherkins. “We’ll go home. But I’ll sit on him until he’s strong enough to travel, never fear.” 

Leonie ignored the put-upon sigh from the bed and hugged Horst. He really was so handsome. And tall. And… vampiric, she reminded herself, repressing any playful thoughts. She hugged him anyway. “Thank you for carrying dad all that way. Take good care of your brother. If something should happen, you know, we couldn’t replace him.”

He smiled at her. “That’s god’s own truth.” 

“I’ll have a quick word with him, if I may.”

Horst agreed easily. “I’ll go chat with the front desk.” 

“Chat?”

“Chat,” he insisted with a show of injured pride, which he immediately undermined with a wink. 

The door clicked behind him, and Leonie sighed, as if shaking something off. “Your brother really is…. Never mind.’ She hadn’t meant to mention that again. “So, the devil hates me.”

Cabal shrugged and winced at the movement. “He’s the adversary; you’re on a long list.’ She didn't seem reassured. “Really, there’s nothing to be done. You’ll probably die of old age before he gets around to thinking of you again. You could get ordained, I suppose. Do they make women priests? Deacon wouldn’t be good enough.”

“Really?”

“The priesthood affords a primitive kind of protection. It probably comes with a price.”

“I'll take it under advisement.’ The church didn't ordain women, and that wasn't what she needed to say.

She recognized the small, oblong shape under the blanket by his side. She had seen him retrieve it from the stage. She wanted to tell him to be careful, again. She wanted to say that if he brought just one soul back into a rotting body, or brought it back mad somehow, he wouldn't ever forgive himself. He interrupted her train of thought. He knew what she was thinking. “Trust me, Leonie.”

“I do.’ It sounded like a choice. And she rose. She paused there for a moment. “Thanks for not giving up on me. Even when I gave up on you. I’m sorry, Johannes.’ She bent down and kissed him on the brow. “Sleep tight. Fire the Webley if you need us.” She left the room, setting the door’s lock to latch behind her. 

It was several moments before he raised his hand to the spot. It was just as well, he thought, that he would be away from his laboratories for several days. Benedictions were rare among necromancers. It might have affected his experiments.

 

***

 

Dear Miss Barrow;

Queen to Q4. Checkmate. I trust your defeat will not mar your inaccurately scheduled celebration of the birth of a Judean rabbi.

Have you heard from the Dee Society? They can hardly complain of the use you made of Twiccian's file. If they bother you, send a cable. 

Horst has insisted upon a tree, though there hasn’t been one in the house since our childhood. I don't know what has come over him, but it is perturbing to watch a man in his condition stringing popcorn and trailing tinsel around the house. It is too late, mercifully, for a plum pudding, but we are not out of the dangerous period for Lebkuchen. 

If he starts singing carols with the thing in the box, I will lead the household in the equally significant Germanic tradition of killing a goat and splashing its blood on the roof-tree to appease Odin. 

_Frohe Weihnachten_

Cordially,

Johannes Cabal

_Post scriptum_  
Wilhelm is an intriguing object of study and has been helping with the dusting. 

 

Leonie folded the letter and smiled.

 

_Will it come like a change in the weather?_  
_Will its greeting be courteous or rough?_  
_Will it alter my life altogether?_  
_O tell me the truth about love._

-W.H. Auden

 

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And that's all she wrote. Many thanks to all my readers and commenters: those who have patiently waited for chapters, and those who are just fetching up here now. Hello! Tell me if you liked it!
> 
> I am sad to see this end, but inexpressably grateful for having had the chance to do it. 
> 
> I'm not as sad as all that, though; I am writing more Leonie and Cabal _(I think it's an illness; send nurses)_. My head is full of the new book, and I have a largish single story I started way back when. It might be about these two, if you like, and I think you will enjoy it. I am planning to take a break from posting until the new year and maybe try Yuletide, so I hope you have a Cabal request out there somewhere. 
> 
> Particular thanks to my husband, who was always willing to accept "but I'm working on my chapter" as a reason for not socializing, sleeping, or doing my share of basic housework and who also lent me a character. Thanks as well to All_I_Need, who read endless whingeing about my writing process with cheerfulness and support. 
> 
> And don't forget Mr. JLH! He is at risk of having to take a day job, as of posting time. He has a Patreon account now; whether he's done with Cabal or not (and I suspect he's not entirely, at least for the occasional short?) those of us in the fandom have an opportunity to show him some gratitude, plus, and I cannot overemphasize this, ensure he has the time to write more books. I want more books. If he writes enough of them, he might even get an itch to write about this sociopath again. Would you be willing to take Howard to lunch every month, or at least a coffee? I would.
> 
> [Jonathan L. Howard's Patreon](https://www.patreon.com/JonathanLHoward)  
> 


End file.
